Mind the Gap: The House That Claude Built

[curious] Picture this — a brownstone in Brooklyn. Exposed brick, south-facing garden, listed at five point nine nine million dollars. And right there in the listing description, in bold... "seller will accept Anthropic stock." [amused] Not dollars. Not gold bars. Shares in an AI company that doesn't even trade on a public exchange....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Happy Friday, everybody. This has been Mind the Gap.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Worm Anyone Could Build

[curious] Imagine you're a grad student at the University of Toronto. It's a Tuesday afternoon, you're in a basement lab, and you just built something with free AI models — tools anyone can download — that can worm its way into any connected device on the planet. [serious] Not theoretically. Not in a simulation. A working AI worm. And instead of keeping it quiet… you publish it. Because the only t...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Brain In The Bucket

[curious] So there's a biotech startup in New Haven, Connecticut called Bexorg. And what they do is... they take a deceased person's brain, remove it, hook it up to a machine, and pump experimental drugs through it to see what happens. [surprised] Wait — a literal brain in a bucket?...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [laughing] That's going on a T-shirt.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Robot That Replaced Itself

[curious] Picture this: a lab at the University of Michigan. A four-thousand-dollar robot stands on a bench. A grad student pulls off its arm... and replaces it with a completely different one she 3D-printed overnight. [amused] Like swapping out Lego bricks on a very expensive toy?...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [laughing] Ship imperfect policies, friends. See you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Cybersecurity Report That Hacked Itself

[serious] Somewhere inside Ernst and Young — one of the biggest consulting firms on the planet — an analyst hits 'publish' on a cybersecurity report about loyalty program fraud. Detailed citations. Authoritative tone. The kind of document Fortune 500 companies pay millions for. [curious] Only problem? The citations are fake. The references are broken. Key claims in the report? Hallucinated — by th...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [laughing] Already reaching for my notebook. See you all tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Tomatoes, Trade Wars, and Robot Hands

[thoughtful] Twenty-one percent. That's how much more your tomatoes cost this April versus last year. Not avocados, not some high-end organic heirloom varietal — tomatoes. The most basic ingredient in your fridge. [serious] And while Canadians were doing that math at the grocery store this week, something else was happening — quietly, on a trade document in Washington. Canada's name... just wasn't...

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Name things well this week. And enjoy your overpriced tomatoes.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The $600 Hand That Could Replace Yours

[curious] So picture this — a factory floor in Shenzhen, rows and rows of robotic hands, each one roughly the size of a human palm... flexing, gripping, rotating a Rubik's cube. [excited] And the price tag on each hand? Six hundred dollars. Not six thousand. Six. Hundred. That's less than the phone in your pocket....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Doctor Will See Your Chatbot Now

[curious] Picture this — a family doctor's office somewhere in Ontario, a Tuesday morning. The patient sits down, pulls out their phone, and says, quote, 'I already asked ChatGPT. It thinks it might be a thyroid issue.' [amused] And the doctor just... stares at this screen full of chatbot output, printed out in neat bullet points, citations and all. Wondering whether she's the second opinion now....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: The Robots Don't Need The Lights On

[curious] It's three in the morning in Osaka. The lights are off. But in Lab Seven, a robotic arm is loading a centrifuge, adjusting reagent volumes, logging results to a shared database — and nobody is watching. [amused] No grad students were harmed in the making of this experiment. Or… involved at all, actually....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [warm] Mind the gap between the name and the thing. We'll see you tomorrow.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.

Mind the Gap: Mangoes, Transistors, and the Knowing-Doing Gap

[warm] In the coastal village of Devgad, India, mango farmer Komal Walke is on the phone at five AM, scrambling to fill orders she already knows she can't meet. [serious] Her Alphonso mangoes — the ones people call the king of fruits — didn't ripen this year. Unseasonal rain, then heat, then more rain. The trees just... gave up....

In today's episode, Alex and Maya explore how Toronto's economy, AI's rapid evolution, and behavioural science intersect — and what it all means for how we live and work.

Takeaway: [playful] Go look at something big.

New episodes drop every weekday morning.