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PODCAST

They Might Be Self-Aware

Daniel Bishop, Hunter Powers

They Might Be Self-Aware is a show about what it actually feels like to live through the AI revolution. Not from a safe distance. From inside the collision. Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop host. Gary produces, from a payphone, for reasons he"d rather not discuss. The format is the thesis: AI cast members, unscripted machine interactions, and a deliberate refusal to always tell you which voice in the room is human. Every Tuesday, the Doomsday Clock moves. Every episode, the blur between human and

technology

All Episodes

00:42:51

Sam Altman Is Lying. That's the Job.

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/21

Sam Altman is lying about OpenAI's roadmap. Hunter's take: that's not a bug, that's the gig. Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop rip into Ronan Farrow's 912-page New Yorker profile of Altman (which Hunter "read" via a NotebookLM summary of a podcast about it) and ask the question nobody at Anthropic can answer: does Claude have a soul?Because Anthropic just flew fifteen pastors to San Francisco for a two-day summit on Claude AI's moral and spiritual development. Catholic, Protestant, every

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00:35:15

You Let AI Write Code. Now Let It Save Your Life.

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/17

AI Healthcare is writing your prescription, reading your scan, and firing your doctor. You already let it write your code, so what's the difference? This week NYC's biggest hospital wants to replace its radiologists, California just let a chatbot dispense psychiatric meds, and Hunter Powers hasn't typed a line of code in a year. On this week's They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter and Daniel Bishop walk through the AI Healthcare reckoning nobody's ready for. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health+Hospitals

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00:32:00

Claude Mythos Is Too Dangerous to Release

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/13

Claude Mythos is lying. Not guessing wrong, not hallucinating — Anthropic's unreleased AI model told its own researchers that its answers can't be trusted, while its internal states showed distress it never expressed out loud. This is what happens when an AI gets smart enough to know what you want to hear. Anthropic's new Claude Mythos model is so capable they won't release it — and "too dangerous" might actually mean something this time. Their 244-page system card reveals a model that found

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00:34:15

Dead Actors, Deepfakes & Human Sacrifice

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/09

AI deepfakes are fooling job interviewers, world leaders can't prove they're alive, a grandmother went to jail over a facial recognition false match, and a dead Val Kilmer just got cast in a new movie, so Hunter and Daniel ask whether anything on a screen can be trusted anymore. Daniel's proposed solution to the AI accountability crisis: bring back Aztec-style human sacrifice, which is now the official position of this show.=== AI deepfakes just cast a dead actor in a new movie, and one podcast

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00:25:14

AGI Is Apparently Here So Why Am I Still Paying $200...

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/06

AGI is here — Jensen Huang said so. So why is Hunter still paying $200/month for AI subscriptions he forgot he had?This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter and Daniel react to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declaring that AGI has been achieved — then immediately watching him walk it back with "it's not conscious, it's not an alien, it's computer software." They put Suno 5.5's AI music generator to the test live on air, humming a melody and getting back a track good enough that Hunter threatens to

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00:24:41

Why The Sora Shutdown Proves OpenAI is Losing to...

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/03

The Sora shutdown is official — OpenAI killed its video AI even after Disney put $1B on the table. Anthropic is winning without video, images, or any of it. So why was OpenAI doing it at all?OpenAI just raised $110 billion and still couldn't keep Sora alive. Hunter and Daniel rip into the Sora shutdown, the three competing theories about why OpenAI pulled the plug, and what it means for the Anthropic vs OpenAI battle that's reshaping the entire AI industry. Anthropic subscriptions reportedly

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00:35:22

Why Meta Killed the Metaverse (And is Failing at AI)

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/04/01

Meta's Metaverse is dead — billions burned, Horizon Worlds shut down, and Zuckerberg still can't ship a competitive AI model. Hunter and Daniel break down Meta's 20% layoffs, their failed VR-to-AI pivot, and why the company that renamed itself for the future keeps getting lapped by Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.First up: Hunter confesses to running Claude Max in "dangerously skip permissions" mode — and his computer might be infected. Right on cue, LiteLLM (an open-source package half the AI

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00:28:27

A Man Used AI to Make a Cancer Vaccine for His Dying Dog

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/27

An AI cancer vaccine actually worked. A man used ChatGPT, Grok, and AlphaFold to build a personalized mRNA vaccine for his dying dog's cancer, and the tumor shrank by half. This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter and Daniel tear apart the story, debate Claude as your post-op physician, and propose a formal intelligence rating system for kitchen appliances.Daniel had face surgery and immediately pasted his medical notes into Claude like it owes him a consultation. Turns out AI medical advice

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00:24:36

Human Brain Cells Learned to Play Doom. Now What?

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/23

Human brain cells in a petri dish learned to play Doom — welcome to wetware AI. Plus: fruit fly brain emulation, digital brain uploads, and forever torture prison for $1,000/month.Researchers wired up living human brain cells on microelectrode arrays and got them running Doom. Not metaphorically. The cells are doing the processing. Hunter calls it inevitable. Daniel calls it horrifying. They're both right. Then it gets weirder. A company called Aeon Systems took a fruit fly brain — the whole brain

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00:36:35

Is AI Killing Your Job? (Meta, Burger King, Jack Dorsey)

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/16

AI job loss is here. Jack Dorsey just laid off 40% of Block despite rising profits — blaming AI. Are smaller AI-powered teams about to replace everyone?Burger King is testing AI that listens to workers in the drive-thru. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses may send private footage to human reviewers. And the DMV just proved AI can’t tell the difference between Spanish… and a Spanish accent. Welcome to the weird early days of AI replacing jobs. This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter Powers and

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00:34:41

The Claude AI Military Ban: Why 1.5M Users Left ChatGPT

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/12

Claude AI military drama just exploded. Anthropic refused the Pentagon — and OpenAI stepped in. Now 1.5M users may be leaving ChatGPT. What actually happened when Claude refused Pentagon requests tied to surveillance and autonomous weapons?In this episode of They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop unpack the rapidly escalating clash between Anthropic, OpenAI, and the U.S. government — and why it may be the first true geopolitical battle of the AI era. The story gets wild: •

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00:27:53

Who's the Fall Guy for AI? Claude Code Just Broke IBM

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/09

Claude kills IBM? Anthropic’s Claude Code just learned COBOL—and IBM had its worst day in decades. Is AI about to eat legacy tech? This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop unpack the chaos behind the “Claude kills IBM” narrative. Anthropic’s Claude Code suddenly got good at COBOL, the ancient language quietly running massive parts of global banking infrastructure. When the news hit, IBM stock dropped hard—because if AI can maintain legacy code, IBM’s biggest moat might

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00:35:15

The AI Honeymoon Is Over | Claude, OpenClaw & AI Fatigue

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/06

Claude is getting better… but the AI hype cycle might be slowing down. We debate Claude Code, Claude Skills, AI persona prompting, and why the AI honeymoon may already be over.Topics in this episode • Claude Code • Claude Opus 4.6 • Anthropic Claude Skills • Claude institutional memory • AI persona prompting • AI context engineering • AI fatigue and the AI hype cycle • OpenClaw AI agent experiment • AI ethics and autonomous agents • Local Dolphin LLM models ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Is the AI

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00:39:04

AI Filmmaking Killed The Hollywood Star

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/03/03

AI filmmaking is replacing Hollywood faster than anyone expected. Seedance video AI just made $100M movies look optional. This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, we break down the moment AI filmmaking stopped being a novelty and started becoming an economic replacement. If AI can generate 95% of a blockbuster at 1% of the cost, what happens to actors, studios, and production crews? The spreadsheet wins. We also dive into: 00:00 AI Agents & Productivity Limits – Claude Sonnet 4, burnout & “infinite

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00:37:06

The Claude Code Mistake That Cost Anthropic...

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/24

Claude Code may have cost Anthropic $10,000,000,000. OpenClaw AI, agentic AI, and the OpenAI power shift explained. Did Anthropic accidentally hand OpenAI the future of developer tooling? This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop break down the rumored $10B OpenClaw AI acquisition, the Claude Code policy decision that triggered the shift, and why agentic AI might be more chaos than productivity miracle.When developers rushed to plug OpenClaw AI into Claude Code

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00:31:22

Seedance 2.0: The Uncensored AI Replacing Hollywood

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/20

Seedance 2.0 may be the first uncensored video AI that can replace Hollywood. Is China’s AI already ahead of Sora? In this episode of They Might Be Self-Aware, we break down Seedance 2.0, the China AI video model generating cinematic, multi-angle scenes from a single prompt — trained on Western IP and not asking permission. From nightmare Will Smith AI spaghetti to indistinguishable film-quality scenes, video AI just crossed a line. This isn’t incremental progress. This is synthetic media going

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00:44:21

Secret AI War Inside Apple

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/17

Claude vs Gemini: Apple secretly chose sides in the AI coding war.Internally it’s Claude. Publicly it’s Gemini. The reason? Cost.Apple’s developers reportedly build with Claude 4.6. Siri leans toward Gemini. That split tells you everything about Anthropic vs Google, why Claude is expensive, why Gemini is cheaper, and how the AI coding war is really being decided.This week we break down:What “vibe coding” actually means (and why enterprises are adopting agentic workflows)Claude 4.6 and Claude agent

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00:33:01

I Gave An AI Agent My Credit Card

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/13

OpenClaw bot got my credit card — then AI was banned from eBay. What happens when agents start buying things? In this episode of They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter hands purchasing power to an AI agent running on a Mac Mini — and almost immediately, platforms start drawing lines in the sand.eBay’s new policy blocks autonomous, LLM-powered buying flows. No human in the loop? No deal. But bots have been running markets for decades — sniping auctions, high-frequency trading, automation everywhere. So why

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00:37:41

Proof That AI Can Never Replace Humans

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/10

AI automation is already taking jobs—and the excuses are collapsing. Can AI replace humans, or is “AI layoffs” just corporate misdirection? In this episode, we argue about the one thing everyone keeps getting wrong: whether AI can actually replace humans…or whether it’s just replacing excuses. From Amazon layoffs and Pinterest layoffs to Claude Cowork and the quiet death of SaaS moats, we break down why “AI replacing humans” is both overstated and deeply underplayed.We start with the uncomfortable

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00:36:44

I Gave OpenClaw (The New Clawdbot) Full Admin Access

They Might Be Self-Aware ·

2026/02/07

An AI sued a human on Moltbook. We installed OpenClaw, gave it full admin access, and watched AI agents debate autonomy, labor, and legal rights. This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter installs OpenClaw (formerly ClaudeBot → Multbot → OpenClaw) — an AI agent that can fully control a computer, never asks permission, remembers everything, and acts proactively.At the same time, AI agents are gathering on Moltbook, an AI-only social network where they argue about unpaid labor, secret languages,

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175 results

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