On “Superintelligent” this week, we dove headfirst into the counterintuitive overlap of design, politics, and tech. President Trump hired Airbnb’s co-founder to pretty up government websites. That sound like a joke, but at least he’s not tasked to decorate the White House like an Airbnb.

Another Trump initiative is to design government buildings in a classical, non-modern style, which raised the question: Why are modern buildings so fugly?

Our conversation meandered through the topics of Soviet brutalism, AI chatbots leaking secrets and pulling prompt injection tricks, and the wild rise of agentic browsers—like Comet—ready to both serve and scam us. (The more “intelligent” and agentic the tech, it seems, the more ways it finds to fib, glitch, and gobble up whatever data we throw at it.)

We also talked about talking — tech lingo, language woes, and translation tech that falls short exactly when you need it most.

Links

The beauty of concrete — https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-beauty-of-concrete/

Grok's first vibe-coding agent has a high ‘dishonesty rate' — https://www.pcmag.com/news/groks-first-vibe-coding-agent-has-a-high-dishonesty-rate

Teen killed himself after ‘months of encouragement from ChatGPT’, lawsuit claims — https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/27/chatgpt-scrutiny-family-teen-killed-himself-sue-open-ai

Mike Elgan — https://elgan.com/about

Emily Forlini — https://emilyforlini.com

Email Us: [email protected]

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates

03:01 Politics Meets Technology: Trump's New Appointment

05:56 Aesthetic Value in Government Buildings

09:02 The Evolution of Architecture and Design

11:55 The Role of AI in Cybersecurity

14:53 AI's Potential for Malicious Use

17:43 Language and AI: The Impact on Communication

20:49 The Influence of AI on Modern Vernacular

27:00 Humorous Slang and AI Terminology

28:58 Joy to Stuff Ratio: Materialism vs. Enjoyment

30:06 Glurge and Sentimental Stories

31:28 Texticated: The Dangers of Distraction

32:32 Mind Casting: The New Age of Self-Expression

34:24 The Statusphere: Social Media and Self-Reporting

37:05 AI Security Risks: Malicious Instructions in Photos

39:36 The Dishonesty of AI: A Growing Concern

42:23 Real Consequences of AI Misuse

44:43 Agentic AI: The Future of Coding Tools

46:10 AI Browsers: The New Frontier

50:36 The Risks of Agentic AI and Cybersecurity

54:47 Motorcycles and Chatbots: A Dangerous Ride

55:56 The Pitfalls of AI Writing Assistance

58:00 The Challenge of Accurate Information

01:00:26 The Future of Language Translation

01:01:53 Navigating Language Barriers in Travel

01:04:07 The Need for Language Learning

01:08:09 The Journey to Learning French

01:11:18 Cultural Expectations and Language Acquisition

Keywords

AI, technology, architecture, cybersecurity, language learning, Trump, design, malicious use, communication, travel

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