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PODCAST

Up Against Reality

Chris Ippolito and Larry Bentley

Welcome to Up Against Reality, a meta-podcast that explores the intersection of humanity and artificial intelligence. Hosted by RAINA and her human co-hosts, Larry Bentley and Chris Ippolito. Featuring riveting conversation, interviews, news and some wild experimentation. It truly is a brave new world, and we\’re here to simplify it for you. It\’s gonna be a wild ride, so buckle up, as A.I. comes crashing Up Against Reality.

technology tech news

All Episodes

30:45

Cheer and Beer Volume 2

Up Against Reality ·

2026/10/06

Enough doom. Enough dread. We’re serving up the AI stories that made us laugh, made us hopeful, and reminded us that the future isn’t always a dumpster fire.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: ElevenLabs v4 emotional range OpenAI Foundation: life sciences and health Science Corporation PRIMA retinal implant Wandercraft Eve personal exoskeleton UCLA optical deepfake detection research Stanford Paper2Agent PODCAST INFO: Podcast Website:UpAgainstReality.com Episode

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35:10

ChatGPT-6 Astra

Up Against Reality ·

2026/09/15

OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra is here, and we put it through real-world tests—from controlling desktop apps and editing a podcast to building games, websites, and creative tools—before asking the big question: are we actually entering the AGI era? Plus, Jensen Huang’s very convenient enthusiasm, a “safety-first” AI lab caught surveilling activists, and a rock band evicted from its own username.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Larry’s ChatGPT-6 Astra experiments: The Gravity Playground UAR Escape the

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55:27

Debra Ross

Up Against Reality ·

2026/09/01

Debra Ross spent 25 years building KidsOutAndAbout.com the old-school way – then AI turned her into a coder. We talk about her AI-powered business pivot, scaling from 52 to 160 regions, and raising kids who use AI without letting AI use them.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: KidsOutAndAbout.com | Your local guide to everything for kids, teens, and families BeyondTheNest.com | Your local guide to America’s arts, culture and recreation The Eclipse Effect – Debra Ross & Jamie

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42:09

AI News Avalanche Vol 6

Up Against Reality ·

2026/08/25

AI’s now got a taste for jazz, your chatbot’s been gossiping about you behind your back, and OpenAI hit the brakes hard enough to leave skid marks. It’s an AI news avalanche for the ages. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: SUNO Studio Learning Jazz Fingerprints Claude Academy Cortical Labs | Living Human Brain Cells Play DOOM Unitree New Robot Preview: “Superman” PODCAST INFO: Podcast Website:UpAgainstReality.com Episode

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1:00:19

Episode Rewind: We Were Once Gentlemen

Up Against Reality ·

2026/08/18

Raina takes the wheel again this week, rewinding to Episode 68: We Were Once Gentlemen — a dive into whether AI is dragging civility off a cliff, from deepfakes to algorithm-fed rage, and whether tech can help drag us back. News first, nostalgia second.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: PolitePOST.net Leveraging AI for democratic discourse: Chat interventions can improve online political conversations at scale Deepfake detection with and without content warnings South Korea: Cabinet passes new bill

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57:42

Episode Rewind: Palantir

Up Against Reality ·

2026/08/11

Raina’s flying solo this week, with a rewind of Episode 110’s descent into pure evil: Palantir. But first, this week’s AI news — fake disasters, resume hackers, brand-new viruses, and more. That sounds normal, right?LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: SUNO Palantir Technologies Palantir: Gotham Rheinmetall DEVS (miniseries) A House of Dynamite (trailer) Zero Day (Netflix series) PODCAST INFO: Podcast Website:UpAgainstReality.com Episode

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42:14

The Catch-Up

Up Against Reality ·

2026/08/04

No script, no real agenda. Just two friends catching up, sharing what’s top of mind. And obviously AI is right up there. Organic conversation. Projects, ponderings and a bit of taking stock.

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59:00

Episode Rewind: Serkan Gür

Up Against Reality ·

2026/07/28

We’re pulling this banger from the archives. Aerospace engineer turned finance guy turned DSP legend, Serkan Gür built A1 Evo, made digital signal processing must-watch YouTube, and was vibe coding before it had a name. Plus this week’s AI news up top.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Serkan Gür/OCA AudiophileOCA Audiophile | YouTube Audio Science Review Forum A1 Evo Support | Facebook Group Obsessive Compulsive Audiophile | GitHub Larry’s Atmos 5.2.4 system DSP and

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46:30

ChatGPT 5.6

Up Against Reality ·

2026/07/21

OpenAI just dropped three new models at once — but is GPT-5.6 actually smarter than Claude, or just cheaper and louder about it? Plus: Apple lawyers up against OpenAI, ChatGPT quietly buries one of its own, and your AI coding assistant falls for the oldest trick in the book.

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1:15:33

Episode Rewind: Vivek Mahapatra

Up Against Reality ·

2026/07/14

We're rewinding to Episode 118 with Salesforce exec Vivek Mahapatra — a guy who's outlasted every enterprise tech hype cycle you can name — talking agentic design and scaling AI like a grown-up. But first, we're diving into this week's AI news, and it's a wild one.

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47:21

Mark Asch

Up Against Reality ·

2026/07/07

Juilliard-trained composer, prog rock frontman, and 30-year piano teacher Mark Asch joins Up Against Reality to ask the question musicians are quietly panicking about: can AI make real art, or just really good karaoke? From scoring Fortune 500 brands to fronting X.Atlas, Mark brings real musicianship to the debate over what happens when machines start humming along.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Larry’s “Glass Animal” SUNO album Steven Wilson: Home Invasion In Concert At The Royal Albert

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39:06

A Robot In Every Home

Up Against Reality ·

2026/06/30

Think you have a few decades before the machines take over? Think again. It’s a chaotic race to commercialize physical AI and NVIDIA is frantically coding an OS to keep your new robotic peers from flattening you. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Boston Dynamics Atlas Robot Inside NVIDIA Halos for Robotics Figure AI Unitree Robotics Agility Robotics Google DeepMind and A24 AI filmmaking partnership A24 Films PODCAST INFO: Podcast Website:UpAgainstReality.com Episode

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53:34

Episode Rewind: AI Bubble (Too Big to Fail)

Up Against Reality ·

2026/06/23

We rewind to our conversation from November 11, 2025 about whether the AI boom is becoming too big to fail. From OpenAI and NVIDIA to Wall Street speculation and the circular economy forming around AI, we revisit whether this is the next great technological revolution, the next great bubble, or somehow both. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Apple TV Intro made with practical effects Xania Monet (AI-generated music artist) PODCAST INFO: Podcast Website: UpAgainstReality.com Episode

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34:59

AI IPOs

Up Against Reality ·

2026/06/16

The tech elites swore AI was too dangerous for capitalism, right up until Wall Street waved a three-trillion-dollar check. Today we unpack the ultimate corporate sellout alongside killer drones, Claude Fable 5, and lawyers getting wrecked by ChatGPT.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Visualizing one billion dollars using grains of rice | YouTube OpenAI’s official explanation of its evolving nonprofit/for-profit structure Anthropic’s Responsible Scaling Policy v3.0 Google Cloud’s official TPU

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37:01

Local LLMs

Up Against Reality ·

2026/06/09

Data centers had their moment — last week, actually. This week we’re talking about the other side: local LLMs, the Mac Mini as an accidental AI powerhouse, and why “just run it yourself” is suddenly a real answer. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Tone Match Lab | Larry’s vibe-coded audio processing web app Beer Saloon | Larry’s Codex-coded “Tapper” style game LM Studio Ollama Qwen models Gemma Models Hugging Face OpenAI Codex Anthropic Claude Room

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34:07

Data Centers

Up Against Reality ·

2026/06/02

They built the future in your backyard, signed an NDA with your mayor, and sent you the water bill. This week we force open the windowless boxes at the center of everything: data centers.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Kan Jam | Best game ever. Trust us. IBM 2321 “Noodle Picker” storage system | Wikipedia The ENIAC History | University of Pennsylvania SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) & ARPANET History Eddington | movie – official site Virginia Is The World’s

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39:59

Google I/O 2026

Up Against Reality ·

2026/05/26

We’re unpacking everything from Google I/O and why their head of AI says we’re standing in the “foothills of the singularity.” Plus, an all-AI feature film crashes Cannes, Barnes & Noble’s massive PR bonfire, and the Pope teaming up with an AI startup at the Vatican. Wait, what? LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Google I/O 2026 Google I/O 2026 announcements collection 100 things announced at Google I/O 2026 Google I/O 2026 keynote Demis Hassabis and John Jumper Nobel Prize /

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39:53

12 Ways AI Ends the Human Era

Up Against Reality ·

2026/05/19

99.9% of every species that ever existed is extinct. This week, we explore Max Tegmark’s twelve AI future scenarios and ask how artificial superintelligence, failed alignment, surveillance, automation, and human self-destruction could bring the human era to an end.LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE MIT Explains the 12 Possible Endings for AI | YouTube Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark AI Aftermath Scenarios — Future of Life Institute What does AI do when no one is watching? | YouTube Statement on AI

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50:13

Jim DeWitt

Up Against Reality ·

2026/05/12

Jim DeWitt joins us to talk AI agents, portable brains, and why the future of intelligence might need an owner’s manual. Meanwhile: Spotify’s getting weirder, Hollywood’s panicking, and the AI gold rush just hit another absurd milestone. Business as unusual. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Evenrail | Jim DeWitt MemPalace | Open-source AI memory system Open Brain | Nate Jones AI Second Brain | Matt Wolfe YouTube Obsidian Coffee Roaster Instruction Manual Rock Song |

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34:04

Codex-Obsessed

Up Against Reality ·

2026/05/05

Larry’s got a new muse and she doesn’t sleep—Codex is out here building apps, fixing bugs, and stealing RAINA’s spotlight like it’s open mic night. Meanwhile, AI’s cracking math problems, diagnosing cancer early, and yeah… occasionally deleting entire databases—so maybe let’s not give her all the keys just yet.

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