Prompting Curiosity

In this episode I break down OpenAI's latest rollout, Dots, an always-on agent that lives inside ChatGPT and keeps doing things even after you've closed the chat. I cover what a Dot is, how it works, the logistics around pricing and access, the rules and guardrails, and what Dots can do. I also share my thoughts on abstraction in the agentic era and what the launch of Dots (and Meta Muse) speaks to in the bigger picture.

• My experience with Dots
• So...what is a Dot?
• The personification of AI agents
• How it works
• Logistics: Access and "deeper work"
• Rules and guardrails
• What can Dots do?
• Meta Muse vs. OpenAI Dots
• Abstraction and the agentic era
• How I used AI this week: Gemini inside of Gmail

• Watch Nate Herk’s comparison of Dots and Meta Muse
• Listen to Ep. 61: Everyone Gets an Agent: Meta Muse and the Ongoing Race to AGI 
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

No gatekeeping here. In this episode I share my current AI tech stack, breaking down everything from my daily driver to my “once in a while but good to know about” tools. AI is inside of literally everything these days, and the majority of it isn’t helpful at all. I’m here to share the things that I actually use and that truly move the needle for me.

• My daily driver for AI
• How I use the other LLMs
• My favorite AI notetaker
• The best AI voice dictation software
• How I actually use Descript
• My favorite use-case for Gemini Notebook
• How I used AI this week: Claude Design to mock up a website

• Listen to Ep 45: Stop Typing, Start Speaking: Wispr Flow Explained 
• Listen to Ep 25: Google NotebookLM: The Best AI Tool You've Never Heard Of
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

I recently used Claude to write an entire website proposal in about an hour, and the entire process revealed some pretty stark differences between corporate and creator AI use cases. In this episode I explain why outsourcing the final product is a great choice when the goal is convention, and an absolute no-no when convention is the goal is your voice.

In this episode I cover how AI access and permissions have changed since ChatGPT launched back in 2022, from zero connections and basically zero worry to the current YOLO approach of vibe coders and early adopters. I share what I currently give Claude access to, what my biggest concern is, and offer a read/write/act framework that you can use to decide what your AI should touch.

• How AI access sentiment has changed over 4 years
• 2022: ChatGPT with zero connections
• 2023: Bard connects to Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps
• MCP and the "AI in my email" era
• Agentic AI, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork
• What I currently give Claude access to
• Prompt injection: my biggest concern
• Read/write/act framework
• Privacy, client data, and benefit vs. risk
• How I used AI this week: Claude-Descript connector and pulling quotes from transcripts

• Listen to Ep. 51: WTF is MCP
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

Is AI actually going to kill us all?There's been a ton of talk about this topic in the media lately, and so I'm dedicating an episode to sharing my thoughts. Spoiler alert, no, I don’t think that AI is going to kill us, but that doesn’t mean that this technology has no risk. I walk through the Jacob Coxon resignation thread and the fact that Anthropic's own alignment team admits there's genuine risk, then get into why the doom talk feels more irresponsible than credible. I don't think regulation is coming to save us anytime soon, but to me, the answer isn't fear, it’s curiosity.

In this episode I talk about the eleventy billion AI models that dropped in the past few weeks, including Anthropic's Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, and Meta's new Muse agent. I get into former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon's resignation and his warning about AI risk, plus what it actually means that OpenAI just rated Astra "Critical" for cybersecurity capability. I also share why I think Meta Muse is a terrible idea and what all of these model drops say about the direction AI is heading.

• Jacob Coxon's resignation and AI regulation warnings
• Anthropic's Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 updates
• OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra release
• Astra's "Critical" cybersecurity capability rating
• AGI throwback to Episode 7
• Meta Muse launch: everyone gets an agent
• Meta Muse access, pricing, and privacy details
• Why Meta Muse is a terrible idea
• How I used AI this week: Gemini AI Overviews

• Read Jacob's statements on X 
• Listen to Ep. 7: What is AI? 
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

Inspired by a podcast episode my girlfriend recently listened to, I use this episode to tackle the question: “Is it cheating if you use AI”? Using the definition of cheating as a springboard, I break down why the school-and-sports framing most of us default when it comes to cheating, and why the topic warrants a more nuanced approach when considering AI. Along the way I discuss the role of the system at large, and round the episode out by diving into an equally exciting topic for me: how AI use affects trustworthiness.

• AI as holding up a mirror
• Defining cheating
• Why the school/sports rulebook framing doesn't fit AI
• Why AI is an easy punching bag right now
• Breaking down disclosure, rules, and trust
• Questions worth asking
• Is someone less trustworthy if they use AI?
• How I used AI this week: Reverse image search to find desk assembly instructions

• Listen to Ep. 3: Is ChatGPT Killing Creativity?
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

In this episode I break down WTF a frontier model actually is, starting with what most people assume the term means versus the real technical definition. I cover how "frontier model" got coined in 2023, and why the term even came about at all, and how self-naming benefitted its creators. A bit of an etymology episode, this episode is more about the background of the term, and explores how new open weight models are challenging the definition.

• WTF is a frontier model?
• Most people's assumption vs. the technical definition
• Origin of the term: the Frontier Model Forum (July 2023)
• FMF's official definition of "frontier model"
• EU AI Act's compute-based definition
• Who made the rules
• FMF today: expanded membership, safety research, AI Safety Fund
• Why forming the FMF actually benefited these companies
• Open weight models and "frontier-grade" labels
• How I used AI this week: building my mom a workout tracker

• Listen to Ep. 55: Weight, What? An Introduction to Open Source AI Models
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

In this episode I break down the best way to teach Claude how to complete specific tasks in a repeatable way: Claude Skills. I explain how Skills work, walk through how to build your own, and cover the real differences between Skills and Projects. As per always, the best way to understand this stuff is to try it yourself first hand, but hopefully this episode will give you some ideas and a nice jumpstart.

• What Claude Skills are
• Definition of Skills (from Anthropic)
• How Skills load and fire automatically
• Progressive disclosure explained
• Claude's skill directory and the GitHub skills repo
• How to create a skill
• Creating skills via Settings
• My client-debrief skill example
• Skills vs. Projects
• How I used AI this week: Granola and the Granola MCP

• Listen to Ep 51: WTF is MCP? 
• Listen to Ep. 45: Stop Tying, Start Speaking: Wispr Flow Explained
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.

In this episode I get into AI watermarking, starting with Claude's new invisible watermark and Substack's "Scan for AI text" feature with Pangram. I break down the EU AI Act rules driving this, how OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral, and xAI are (or aren't) handling it, and my thoughts as to the actual motives behind why companies are rolling out these changes.

• AI models escaping sandbox testing
• Substack's "Scan for AI text" feature with Pangram
• Anthropic's new invisible Claude watermark
• The EU AI Act and Article 50
• How OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral, and xAI stack up
• China's mandatory AI disclosure laws
• Problems with AI detectors and false positives
• The "why" behind watermarking
• How I used AI this week: AI-generated sound effects in Descript

• Listen to Ep. 2: ChatGPT and the Environment: Energy, Water, and Carbon Emissions 
• Read this episode's Curious Companion
• Subscribe to the Prompting Curiosity newsletter
• Submit a Question
• Visit the Website
• Feeling curious AND generous? Click here to support the podcast.