AI & I

Dwarkesh Patel, a keen podcaster known for his conversations with notable figures on AI and history, shares insights on maximizing knowledge with AI tools. He discusses how he uses LLMs for effective learning and interview preparation, emphasizing the importance of being an early adopter of technology. Dwarkesh also explores the impact of focused study on broader insights, the significance of reading for personal growth, and his unique approach to understanding complex topics. His insights are invaluable for anyone looking to enhance their learning using AI.

Alex Komoroske, Co-founder and CEO of Common Tools and former leader at Stripe and Google, dives deep into the implications of small technical decisions on the future of AI. He discusses how foundational choices shape technology's impact on society, including user control over data versus centralized systems. Alex also explores the importance of designing AI that aligns with human intentions and addresses privacy concerns. With insights on the transformative potential of language models, he emphasizes the need for mindful integration of technology in our lives.

Join Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal, cofounders of The Browser Company, as they share their journey from the Arc browser to their new AI-driven creation, Dia. They discuss the intense backlash faced during their pivot and how user feedback shaped their approach. With Dia, they aim to redefine the browsing experience, making it smarter and more personalized. The duo candidly reflects on the emotional highs and lows of tech innovation, emphasizing resilience in the face of criticism and the importance of creativity in a fast-evolving industry.

Kieran Klaassen, General Manager at Cora, and Brandon Gell, Head of the product studio at Every, take you behind the scenes of their innovative AI email assistant, Cora. They share amusing stories from its early days at a retreat in Nice and discuss how Cora evolved from a casual prototype into a robust tool that intelligently filters and summarizes emails. With features like drafting replies in the user's voice and tailoring email management preferences, Cora is set to revolutionize how we handle our inboxes—one email at a time.

Joe Hudson is a coach who works with the executives building AGI at OpenAI. From inside OpenAI, he witnesses the full spectrum of human emotion that comes with bringing something new into the world—the exhilaration, the terror, the weight of it all. He feels these emotions, too: He believes AI will eventually replace what he does as a coach.But instead of fixating on that fear, Hudson is asking a deeper question: Who is he becoming in the meantime? He believes that moments like this—when we can feel the ground quiver—can be powerful catalysts for transformation, but only if we’re willing to face the uncertainty they bring.In this episode of AI & I, Dan Shipper sits down with Hudson to talk about how he’s answering that question. They get into what happens when the thing you’ve built your life around might disappear, how to find who you are beneath your professional identity, and why Hudson believes intention is the key to growing with AI.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipperSponsors: Google Gemin: Experience high quality AI video generation with Google's most capable video model: Veo 3. Try it in the Gemini app at ⁠gemini.google⁠ with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:49What it feels like inside the room where AGI is being built: 00:03:14The most important question to ask yourself as AGI approaches: 00:08:15The importance of sitting with uncertainty: 00:17:49How Joe is preparing his daughters for a post-AGI world: 21:11:04How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 27:25:01Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 35:34:04Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 42:44:03Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Joe Hudson: @FU_joehudson; Learn more about the coaching and workshops that Joe runs: Art of Accomplishment

Kieran Klaassen, general manager of Cora, and engineer Nityesh Agarwal share their insights about leveraging AI to enhance engineering workflows. They discuss how AI agents like Claude Code help streamline coding processes, enabling them to ship features like a team of 15. The pair explores collaborative coding techniques, real-time feedback integration, and effective use of AI in problem-solving. They also rank various AI coding assistants, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, making a compelling case for how AI can revolutionize software development.

OCD treatment changed my life—but it took me a decade of chasing down wrong answers to be diagnosed. In the rush to create scalable treatments, disorders like depression and OCD are squeezed into diagnostic checklists—from which the complexity of the human mind invariably leaks out. The field of psychiatry is broken, and I spoke to someone on the inside about how AI can help fix it .⁠Awais Aftab⁠ has been questioning psychiatry’s rigid categories from inside the field. He’s a clinical assistant professor at ⁠Case Western Reserve University⁠, editor of ⁠Conversations in Critical Psychiatry⁠—an Oxford University Press volume that tackles philosophical and critical perspectives in psychiatry—and author of the Substack newsletter ⁠Psychiatry at the Margins⁠. We get into how AI is transforming psychiatry by embracing the complexity of human minds instead of flattening it.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Sponsor: Microsoft TeamsWant seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to ⁠https://aka.ms/every⁠ to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:20The case Awais makes for pluralistic thinking in psychiatry: 00:03:38A pragmatic approach to mental healthcare: 00:15:30Awais’s take on why my OCD diagnosis took 10 years: 00:19:04Why psychiatry is stuck where machine learning was decades ago: 00:24:19Why psychiatry’s focus should shift from explanations to predictions: 00:31:05How Awais thinks AI is already changing the psychiatric profession: 00:39:19Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Awais Aftab: @awaisaftab, ⁠awais aftab⁠ Awais’s Substack: ⁠Psychiatry at the Margins⁠The book Awais edited: ⁠Conversations in Critical Psychiatry⁠

Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, leads the charge in AI coding innovation with Copilot, boasting 15 million users. He explores the competitive edge GitHub holds against emerging coding tools and unveils an autonomous coding agent designed to enhance productivity. Dohmke discusses how Copilot's personality is shaped and addresses the balance between AI support for both legacy users and modern developers. With predictions on the future of software development, he shares insights into the evolving dynamics of AI in coding.

I interviewed Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott about the future of agents and software engineering for another special edition of AI & I. With 41 years of programming behind him, Kevin has lived through nearly every big shift in modern software development. Here’s his clear-eyed take on what’s changing with AI, and how we can navigate what’s next:The real breakthrough for the agentic web is better plumbing. Kevin thinks agents won’t be useful until they can take action on your behalf by using tools and fetching data. To do this, agents need access across your systems—and Microsoft’s answer is adopting Model Context Protocol, or “MCP,” that allows an agent to access tools and fresh data beyond its knowledge base, as their standard protocol for agents to move through contexts and get things done.How the agentic web echoes the early internet. Just as protocols like HTTP and HTML gave the web a shared language, Kevin believes the  agentic web needs its own infrastructure—the first glimpses of this include MCP (the HTTP of agents) and NLWeb, Microsoft’s push to make websites legible to agents (similar to what HTML did for browsers).Open ecosystems can coexist with strong security systems. Kevin argues that the “tradeoff” between ecosystems that allow “permissionless” innovation and robust security is a false dichotomy. With AI agents that understand your personal risk preferences—and know your communication habits across email, text, and other channels—they could detect when something suspicious is happening and act on your behalf. The craftsman’s dilemma in the age of agents. Kevin is a lifelong maker—of software, ceramics, even handmade bags—and he cares deeply about how things are made. Because this can feel at odds with coding with AI agents, Kevin’s approach is to notice where the process matters most to him, and where it's okay to optimize for outcomes. After four decades of seeing breakthrough technologies, his advice is simple: be curious, try stuff, and use it if it works for you.The future of software engineering agents is plural. Kevin believes the future of software engineering agents will be diverse because developers who enjoy the freedom of playing with different tools is one of the most consistent patterns he’s seen in his decades in tech. What will drive this diversity, he says, is builders who deeply understand specific problems and tailor agents to solve them exceptionally well.How agentic workflows will evolve. Kevin sees a shift from short back-and-forth interactions with agents to longer, async feedback loops. As the agentic web matures and model reasoning improves, people will start handing off bigger, more ambitious tasks and letting agents run with them.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:44The race to close the “capability overhang”: 00:02:49How agents will evolve into practical, useful tools: 00:04:31The role Kevin sees Microsoft playing in the agent ecosystem: 00:06:48How robust security measures can coexist with open ecosystems: 00:12:05Kevin's philosophy on being a craftsman in the age of agents: 00:15:39How the landscape of software development agents will evolve: 00:20:52The future of agentic workflows: 00:25:33

OpenAI just launched Codex, a brand-new coding agent that can build features and fix bugs autonomously. We’ve been testing it at Every for a few days, and I’m impressed.I invited Alexander Embiricos, a member of the OpenAI product staff responsible for Codex, to demo the agent live on a special edition of AI & I. We talk through:- What Codex is and how it works. Codex’s UI allows developers to see the list of tasks the agent is working on, how many lines were changed for each, and the status of the PR. It’s built for the senior software engineer who wants to delegate and review tasks efficiently.- How OpenAI is thinking about agents. Codex is one piece of a unified super-assistant OpenAI wants to eventually build—an agent that helps users easily get things done by selecting the right tools for them behind the scenes. - Why an “abundance mindset” is best for interacting with agents. Codex is designed to allow users to delegate many tasks at once without getting caught up in the details. This lets you point an abundance of agents at a specific task, like a difficult bug—it’s worth it even if only one of them succeeds.- OpenAI’s vision for the future of programming. In the future developers will probably spend less time writing routine code and more time guiding agents, reviewing their work, and making strategy decisions. Programming will become more social, letting teams easily delegate multiple tasks at once, allowing people to focus on ideas and collaboration instead of routine coding.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:00:52The product decisions behind Codex’s interface: 00:01:40How Codex works under the hood: 00:06:20Why you need an abundance mindset to work well with agents: 00:14:06Setting Codex to work on a real task in “Ask” mode: 00:16:28How OpenAI is thinking about designing agents: 00:18:54The future of programming is social: 00:31:16Reviewing Codex’s work live: 00:37:21How the landscape of agents will evolve: 00:39:41