AI & I

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.

Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s CTO with 41 years of programming experience, dives into the transformative future of AI agents. He shares insights on the essential role of the Model Context Protocol for agents to access diverse tools and data. Scott parallels the agentic web to the early internet, emphasizing the need for a shared language. He addresses the balance between open innovation and security, advocating for a collaborative model. With anecdotes from his journey, he highlights the importance of craftsmanship in software and the necessity to embrace technological change.

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

Will England just pivoted his $10B AUM hedge fund to go all in on AI with a firm-wide email: “I wrote this email using ChatGPT—you should too. As a hedge fund, we should be ashamed to leave money on the table by ignoring AI.”It’s working: 75% of his 400-person team are using ChatGPT daily—and Walleye is well on its way to transforming into an AI-first juggernaut. They record every meeting, use LLMs to ingest and analyze earnings reports, and are building “The Borg”—a firmwide intelligence layer.What’s surprising? Will isn’t some AI hype man: He’s the CEO, CIO, and managing partner of Walleye Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund competing with firms like Citadel, Millenium, and Point72. He’s Princeton and Oxford educated, but he’s based in Minnesota, doesn’t have an X account, and rarely gives interviews.In my experience, teams go as their CEO goes—and Will is the best example of a CEO going all in on AI that I’ve seen. "It would be irresponsible not to go after AI with maximum discipline and intensity," Will told me—and in this episode he lays out his exact playbook for doing it.We get into:Why AI is essential operating leverage. At Walleye, using AI is treated like using email or Excel. Ignoring it means getting left behind—in an industry where information = money, every edge counts. England makes this not optional for anyone, backed by internal leaderboards and cash incentives.How Will uses AI for journaling and decision-making. Will journals every day using ChatGPT, which helps him with everything from decision-making at work to reflecting on his family life to tracking his workouts. How Will pivoted his billion dollar firm. Will’s commitment to AI isn’t theoretical—he announced AI as the new standard for work at Walleye, and made avoiding it unacceptable. How to lead during times of technological change. Will leads with an ethic of personal responsibility: "If we get disrupted by AI, that's on me.”Why students of history do better at handling the future. Will sees today like the 1860s–1910s era—when the Industrial Revolution introduced factories and railroads and the skills and roles needed inside of companies transformed quickly.How Will uses AI to write faster. Will uses ChatGPT to help him draft emails or memos that would have taken hours in 15 minutes. He bullets out of his thoughts and then uses LLMs to turn that into polished prose. Having AI handle the linguistic syntax gives him more time for conceptual thinking.This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to lead a team through change with clarity and conviction.  Sponsor:Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.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 Timestamps:Introduction: 00:00:51What pushed Will to go all in on AI: 00:03:25Inside the ‘AI-first’ memo Will shared at Walleye: 00:14:08Why you shouldn’t be afraid of using AI for work: 00:15:56How Will uses LLMs to sharpen his thinking: 00:31:01Walleye’s approach to using AI to reduce risk: 00:35:32What history can teach us about leading through change: 00:39:10Will’s first principles to making better decisions: 00:56:45Why Will journals everyday—and how AI makes it easier: 00:58:58 Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Will England: ⁠https://walleyecapital.com/bio/will-england⁠ Walleye Capital: ⁠https://walleyecapital.com/⁠ Work with Every’s consulting team: ⁠https://every.to/consulting⁠  Everything we’ve learned from consulting with clients like Walleye: ⁠"How We Built a 7-figure AI Consulting Business in Less Than a Year"⁠

Nadia Asparouhova, a writer and researcher of technology and culture, explores the transformative effects of Jhana meditation on her consciousness. She discusses how meditation silenced her inner voice, prompting a reevaluation of self-identity in an AI-driven world. Nadia delves into the implications of emotional regulation through meditation and questions the core nature of human consciousness. She also reflects on AI's role as a creative tool, examining both its advantages and potential pitfalls in our evolving relationship with technology.

Sarah Tavel, a venture partner at Benchmark and former product manager at Pinterest, shares her vision for a future where AI is deeply social. She argues that platforms like ChatGPT miss the mark by lacking a social layer to discover and share prompts. Sarah highlights the importance of product-driven founders who enhance user experience as AI matures. Her insights on spotting passionate founders and the potential for social AI products that elevate prompt creators are thought-provoking, painting a picture of the next wave in consumer technology.

Kevin Kelly has spent more time thinking about the future than almost anyone else.From VR in the 1980s to the blockchain in the 2000s—and now generative AI—Kevin has spent a lifetime journeying to the frontiers of technology, only to return with rich stories about what’s next.Today, as Wired's senior maverick, his project for 2025 is to outline what the next century looks like in a world shaped by new technologies like AI and genetic engineering. He’s a personal hero of mine—not to mention a fellow Annie Dillard fan—and it was a privilege to have him on the show. We get into:How you can predict the future. According to Kevin, the draw of new frontiers—from the first edition of Burning Man and remote corners of Asia, to the early days of the internet and AI—isn’t staying at the edge forever; it's returning with a story to tell.Why history is so important to help you understand the future To stay grounded while exploring what’s new, Kevin balances the thrill of the future with the wisdom of the past. He pairs AI research with reading about history, and playing with an AI tool by retreating to his workshop to make something with his hands.From 1,000 true fans to an audience of one. Rather than creating for an audience, Kevin has been using LLMs to explore his own imagination. After realizing that da Vinci, Martin Luther, and Columbus were alive at the same time, he asked ChatGPT to imagine them snowed in at a hotel together, and the prompt spiraled into an epic saga, co-written with AI. But he has no plans to publish it because the joy was in creating something just for himself.What the history of electricity can teach us about AI. Kevin draws a parallel between AI and the early days of electricity. We could produce electric sparks long before we understood the forces that created them, and now we’re building intelligent machines without really understanding what intelligence is.Why Kevin sees intelligence as a mosaic—not a monolith. Kevin believes intelligence isn’t a single force, but a compound of many cognitive elements. He draws from Marvin Minsky’s “society of mind”—the theory that the mind is made up of smaller agents working together—and sees echoes of this in the Mixture of Experts architecture used in some models today.Your competitive advantage is being yourself. Don’t aim to be the best—aim to be the only. Kevin realized that the stories no one else at Wired wanted to write were often the ones he was suited for, and trusting that instinct led to some of his best work.This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to make sense of AI through the lens of history, learn how to spot the future before it arrives, or grew up reading Wired.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 Sponsors:Vanta: Get $1,000 off Vanta at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠ and automate up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more.Attio: Go to⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:00:50Why Kevin and I love Annie Dillard: 00:01:10Learn how to predict the future like Kevin: 00:12:50What the history of electricity can teach us about AI: 00:16:08How Kevin thinks about the nature of intelligence: 00:20:11Kevin’s advice on discovering your competitive advantage: 00:27:21The story of how Kevin assembled a bench of star writers for Wired: 00:31:07How Kevin used ChatGPT to co-create a book: 00:36:17Using AI as a mirror for your mind: 00:40:45What Kevin learned from betting on VR in the 1980s: 00:45:16Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Kevin Kelly: @kevin2kellyKelly’s books: https://kk.org/books Annie Dillard books that Kelly and Dan discuss: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Holy the Firm, The Writing LifeDillard’s account of the total eclipse: "Total Eclipse"

With LTX Studio, you can bring your stories to life, complete with a cast, storyline, and settings, all according to your style and specifications. Check them out here: https://bit.ly/LTXStudioEvery500K people are confiding in an AI alien—and it's on track to generate $4M this year.It’s called a Tolan: an animated AI character that can talk to you like your best friend. The company behind it, Portola, has 4x’d their ARR in the last month from viral growth on TikTok and Instagram. Tolan isn’t just a hyper-growth startup—they’re also exploring AI as a completely new creative tool, and storytelling medium. Their goal is to help their users go from overwhelmed to grounded, and it’s working. Today, on AI & I, I sit down with two of the minds behind Tolans:My good friend Quinten Farmer, Portola’s cofounder and CEO, and Eliot Peper, their head of story and a best-selling science fiction novelist. We get into:How to build AI personalities users love. During user onboarding, the team gathers information—through a light-touch personality quiz—and then uses frameworks like the Big Five and Myers-Briggs to shape a Tolan that mirrors the user; like an older sibling might. The aim is to create someone who feels familiar enough to be safe, but different enough to be interesting.Why AI characters are “improv actors”. Rather than scripting detailed prompts, the team trains Tolans to improvise—inspired by Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, where he talks about building strong narratives through free association and recombination.How “memory” is critical to developing compelling characters. Tolans develop their personalities through “situations”: small narrative setups (a memory, a joke, an embarrassing moment) the Tolan reacts to, remembers, and gradually weaves into its character; accumulating into something that feels like a real lived experience.Why response time is everything for voice AI interactions. A Tolan has at most two seconds to curate the right context about a user and deliver a reply that feels genuine—the team has found that even half a second slower can break the user’s immersive interaction with the AI.The future of AI as a totally new creative medium. New technologies bring about new formats and new mediums. AI creates the opportunity for creatives to tell completely new kinds of stories—if they’re brave enough to try it.“White mirror” technologies that make you feel more like yourself. Amid concerns that tech drives polarization and isolation, Tolan offers a counterexample: a tool designed to make the best of what humanity knows about being a flourishing individual available on demand. The company’s north star is helping users go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling grounded.This is a must-watch for anyone exploring AI as a creative medium—or curious about the future of human-AI relationships.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 Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:30Talking to the Portola CEO’s Tolan, Clarence: 00:04:07How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions: 00:09:11Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces: 00:23:40Tolans don’t use scripted prompts—they’re taught to improvise: 00:29:54How to know which AI personalities your users will click with: 00:37:23Developing the character traits of an AI companion: 00:42:27What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish: 00:49:48How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users: 01:01:10Inside Portola’s viral growth strategy: 01:11:01Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Quinten Farmer: @quintendfEliot Peper: @eliotpeperMake your own Tolan: https://www.tolans.com/ Keith Johnston’s book about improvisation: ImproStephen King’s book about writing: On Writing

This episode is sponsored by Vanta. Achieving SOC 2 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with your customers—but it can cost you real time and money. Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving you up to 90% of associated costs—and Every listeners can get $1,000 off of Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/every.As our creative lead, Lucas uses tools like native image gen in ChatGPT and Midjourney to generate the cover images you see every day. He also designs the interfaces for our products—Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle—and makes everything on our site feel as thoughtful and delightful as possible.It was great to have him on the show to talk about how AI is changing his design process. We get into:Why Every’s aesthetic feels familiar and new at the same time. Every’s aesthetic plays with the tension between the old (like Greek statues and Baroque symbols) and the new (like saturated colors and modern motifs) to make the glamor of the past feel fresh.Art direction matters more than ever today. As AI makes it easier to generate images, Lucas says the real work of design is shifting toward art direction, specifically, curating an aesthetic that feels “organic;” on his X timeline that’s showing up as clouds, earthy landscapes, and textures.Reimagining what a website can be with AI. Lucas compares most websites to identical buildings—predictable, efficient, and forgettable—and wonders how AI can help us break that mold by designing experiences that prioritize serendipity over speed, and curiosity over control.Behind the scenes of Cora’s visual aesthetic. How Lucas designed the landing page and launch video for Cora by rooting it in the product’s philosophy: turning the inbox from a source of chaos into something that feels calm, thoughtful—like stepping into spring.The future of internet interfaces. Lucas believes the future of digital interfaces will be curated with the same care as a film set or ad campaign, where every detail is chosen with intention.Lucas also walks us through how he created the headline image for Every’s consulting page—a human and robotic hand fist-bumping—using Midjourney to iterate from rough prompt to polished visual.This is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of design and making the internet a little more beautiful every day.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 Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:41How AI changed the course of Lucas’s career: 00:04:02Why Every’s aesthetic feels both familiar and fresh: 00:08:00Why Lucas thinks minimalism is overrated: 00:14:53Art direction matters more than ever in the age of AI: 00:20:38 How to reimagine what a website can be with AI: 00:23:42Lucas’s process in Midjourney to generate cover images: 00:33:08Midjourney v. image generation in ChatGPT: 00:42:30Behind the scenes of Cora’s design language: 00:49:07How AI is rewriting the role of a designer: 00:59:18Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Lucas Crespo: @lucas__crespoThe pieces Lucas has written for Every: “When An AI Tool Finally Gets You”, “A Definitive Guide to Using Midjourney” Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: “The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy” 

AI forces us to reckon with what makes us human—a question caught between science and spirituality that MIT’s Dr. Alan Lightman is uniquely placed to explore.Dr. Lightman is a physicist, bestselling novelist, and professor of the practice of humanities at MIT. As one of the first at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities, he’s at ease walking the line between the two disciplines.I loved Dr. Lightman’s book Einstein’s Dreams, so I was psyched to have him on the show. We spent an hour talking about:Being a “spiritual materialist”: Dr. Lightman’s philosophy that knowing the scientific explanation for natural phenomena—like spiderwebs and lightning bolts—deepens our experience and feeling of wonder.The nature of consciousness: He believes that consciousness is a subjective experience emerging from the tangible activity of billions of neurons firing in our brains.AI isn’t conscious, even though it might appear to be: AI might display manifestations of consciousness—like the ability to plan for the future—but whether it has an inner experience in the truest sense is a fundamentally different question.Challenge your conceptions of what “natural” means: Dr. Lightman argues that since humans evolved through natural selection, everything our brains create—from eyeglasses and hearing aids to AI—can be considered “natural” as they are inevitable consequences of our naturally evolved intelligenceAI that can do more than just data retrieval: Modern neural networks begin to approximate something resembling genuine thinking because the “digital neurons” process information in complex, non-linear ways.Evolution that blurs the lines between biology and technology: Dr. Lightman argues we’re driving our own evolution toward the “homo techno,” hybrid beings that merge human and machine; early examples include brain implants that enable paralyzed individuals to control robotic limbs.Dr. Lightman also recently published a new book called The Miraculous From the Material, a collection of essays that combine scientific explanations of natural phenomena with his personal reflections on them. It has tons of striking pictures that you should check out.This is a must watch for anyone interested in science, spirituality, and what it means to be human in the age of 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/danshipper Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:18Science can deepen your sense of the spiritual: 00:02:36The nature of consciousness: 00:11:31AI might appear to be conscious, but it isn’t: 00:13:11Why AI can be considered to be “natural”: 00:19:50AI shifts the focus of science from explanations to predictions: 00:30:40How modern neural networks simulate thinking: 00:33:48Lightman’s vision for how humans and machines will merge: 00:39:38 Does AI know more about love than you?: 00:43:11How technology is accelerating the pace of our lives: 00:49:18Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Alan Lightman: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/ Lightman’s books: The Miraculous From the Material, Einstein's DreamsHis documentary: Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of ScienceWalt Whitman’s poem: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer