Talking with linguist, writer, and language technologist Christopher Johnson surfaced a number of interesting topics, including:

* Defining Generative AI for real

* The biggest danger in language models

* How AI undermines the foundations of trust

* When AI output isn’t truly creative

* Language, reasoning and consciousness

* How (and why?) Elon Musk fired Christopher

* The state of Twitter today

* Christopher’s new (forthcoming) book!

* The future of human creativity… where we’re going next

Topics Discussed in this episode:

* Are We Anti-AI?

* The anti-AI Movement

* Being Anti-Generative-AI doesn’t mean anti-AI

* How AI Helps

* AI used in radiology

* AI used to decipher ancient scrolls

* History of Cultural Decline

* Societal Collapse

* How Concentration of Power and Wealth Hurts Us

* Correlation to Oligarchical Rise

* History of United States Big Business and Regulations

* Railroad Tycoons

* Food Safety History

* Tax Rates in the 1950s to present

* Public Funded Science Projects

* ARPA Net

* How the Government Created the Internet

* GPS Creation

* mRNA Vaccines

* Public investment works

* How to Build a New Open Tech Future

* Switzerland’s LLM for Public Good

* More about Switzerland’s LLM

* How Denmark Protects People in the Age of AI

* Transparent AI: Permanence AI

Online anti-AI firebrand Téa Smith gives us a crash course in the history of Black Mirror style human exploitation and covers these topics:

* Her storied history and technical leadership

* How the Cambridge Analytica scandal galvanized Téa

* Legal precedents for AI - Why Equine Law Still Applies

* How to Maintain the Rule of Law

* The Evangelical Bent of the Cult of AGI

* How to Make the World a Better Place

Topics Discussed in this episode:

* A Wealth of Common Sense: 50 Ways the World is Getting Better

* The World is Getting Better: Charts and Graphs (from Vox)

* Human Intelligence Institute: Our Independence Day Declaration

* Why the Humanities Matter in Today’s World

* Fiction Builds Empathy: Journal of Research in Personality

* Impact of the Arts on Psychological Well Being

* The Value of the Trades and Handcrafting

* The Power of Storytelling to Facilitate Human Connection

* Tech Needs Us: How Arts & Culture Leads to Innovation

Kira Cleveland and Ned Hayes talk with technologist and content provenance strategist Nate Angell about a variety of content protection frameworks, including:

* Creative Commons History of Copyright Contract Extensions

* Creative Commons CC Signals “Social Contract” and Context in the age of AI

* ISCC International Standard Content Code

* C2PA Coalition for Content Provenance & Authenticity

* Launch of the Humanright™ Mark to Protect Human Creators

This week, Kira and Ned talked about:

* A new study by scholars Nolwenn Maudet, Anaëlle Beignon, and Thomas Thibault - called “Imposing AI: Deceptive design patterns against sustainability.”

* They created a new guide: “How tech companies are pushing us to use AI.”

* Brian Merchant’s trenchant commentary: How big tech is force-feeding us AI

* Cory Doctorow’s coinage “enshittification” and why it matters. (more from Cory)

* And finally, the federal absurd and counter-productive AI Action Plan

* We also touched on Commentary by Ben Maling

Inaugural podcast episode -- interview with Josh Pinkston of Nature & Spirit as hes speaks about the art of creating music with a genuine human touch.