35 - The State of AI Tools w. DeadmanOz

# The Good Stuff, with Pete and Andy - Episode 35: The State of AI Tools

**Hosts:** Pete and Andy

**Guest:** Anthony (Dead Man Oz) - AI enthusiast, open source developer, Perth local Pete and Andy sit down with Anthony at the back of the van to discuss two and a half years of using AI coding tools. From surviving the Claude degradation period to building custom tax software, they explore multi-model planning workflows, the death of white-collar jobs, and what work looks like when kids enter the workforce.

## Key Moments:*

[01:23] Anthony's journey: two orders of magnitude improvement in AI tools over 2.5 years*

[02:14] The Claude degradation period—when the model went retarded for a month*

[04:21] The elaborate fake application: Claude invented entire interfaces that weren't wired to anything*

[08:31] Multi-model planning: Gemini says yes early, Claude next, Codex is anal retentive to the nth degree*

[14:07] Specialized sub-agents that actually work: Atomic Committer and Git rebasing tools*

[16:27] Claude as a "moany little bitch" that always wants permission*

[21:50] Corporate IT won't move quickly—they're too scared of risk assessments*

[23:45] The Excel analogy: vibe coding is the new making an Excel sheet that does a thing*

[27:33] "Previously I would have been like, what? You're going to rock up with Claude Code."*

[35:35] Anthropic study: 1,250 people, 90% find value, but 70% say there's stigma using AI*

[39:05] Protectionism: "If I admit I'm using it, can't they just replace me with AI?"*

[42:01] Pete's hot take: LLMs understand language, not facts—use databases for facts*

[47:38] Do creatives using AI tools become 100x more valuable in the short term?*

[53:04] AI conference shock: 1 in 6 submissions had fabricated references and quotes*

[54:35] Speed isn't raw speed—it's removing the lag of waiting for people and debugging cycles*

[57:09] The breakaway model myth: "Your whole premise is incorrect about escape velocity"*

[59:08] Anthony eliminated his tax agent: built custom software in two weeks*

[1:02:01] The death of SaaS: they need 10 million users, you need it to work once a year*

[1:07:19] Touch Don't Look, Speedrun, Marginal Gains—the full business model explained*

[1:10:20] Beacon project: could integrate with M-Pesa through WhatsApp, perfect for Kenya*

[1:12:09] Anthony's summer project: K-pop demon hunters crossed with Pokemon*

[1:17:09] "You can now do these things. You have more agency. You can experiment more."