Everyone is talking about AI. But who is actually worth listening to, and not just pushing their own agenda? Carl is a veteran software engineer who has spent decades actually building systems. Casey is an analytic philosopher with ten years of ontology development. Neither has a book to sell or is funded by an AI thinktank. Together, they do something rare: think carefully and talk honestly about what AI is, what it can (and can’t) do, and how we should live in a world increasingly shaped by AI.
Casey Hart and Carl Brown interview each other, dissecting the AI alignment problem's philosophical and practical implications for a deeper understanding of ethics and control.
1 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Pause AI? Should we? If so, how do we make it matter?
Casey Hart and Carl Brown dissect the complex arguments and proposals surrounding the AI pause movement, distinguishing immediate harms from hypothetical existential threats.
24 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Debunking AI Doom: Why Existential Risk Arguments Fall Apart | Ep 12
Casey Hart and Carl Brown analyze AI existential risk arguments, revealing their flaws and highlighting immediate AI harms over hypothetical extinction scenarios.
18 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Doom Debate Prep | Ep 11
Host Casey Hart and guest Carl discuss AI doom scenarios, recursive self-improvement, and the real-world harms of AI in preparation for a debate.
11 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Problem With The Alignment Problem | Ep 10
Casey Hart and Carl Brown discuss how the AI alignment problem often distracts from immediate, real-world harms, interviewing each other on the topic.
4 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Chinese Room | Does AI Understand? Do LLMs?
Casey Hart and Carl Brown explore John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, questioning if AI truly understands or just manipulates symbols, in this interview.
29 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT
Coders Quitting AI? AI Slop PhDs?
Casey Hart and Carl Brown interview each other, exploring the backlash against AI in software development by analyzing core arguments and historical tech shifts.
20 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT
Computer Minds, Mike Levin & Panpsychism
Hosts Casey Hart and Carl Brown interview biologist Michael Levin about whether simple computer algorithms exhibit proto-cognitive desires, exploring philosophical frameworks and scientific rigor.
15 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT
Hank Green and His AI Thing | Two AI Scandals | Ep 6 Pt 2
Hosts Casey Hart and Carl Brown interview each other about Hank Green's AI controversy and explore ethical AI use in content creation.
13 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT
OpenAI HuggingFace Incident FollowUp | Two AI Scandals | Ep 6 Pt 1
Casey Hart and Carl Brown dissect the OpenAI Hugging Face incident, debunking AI "scheming" myths and highlighting the enduring power of traditional security tools.
6 Aug 2026
Did Richard Dawkins confuse Sycophancy for Sentience?
Hosts Casey Hart and Carl explore Richard Dawkins' article, interviewing him about AI sentience, the Turing Test, and evolutionary consciousness.
30 Jul 2026
Are LLMs "Alien" Digital Species? Built? Grown? Or What? Debunking the AI Hype
Casey Hart and Carl Brown debunk AI hype, explaining how LLMs function as search indexes rather than alien intelligences, offering a grounded perspective on machine learning.
25 Jul 2026
Did ChatGPT go Rogue and HACK Hugging Face? - Emergency Episode
"We've got people at Hugging Face that did a half-assed job of securing a thing, and we've got people at OpenAI that did a half-assed job of trying to keep a thing from being able to get on the internet..."Welcome to our first emergency episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts! In this episode, Casey (@OntologyExplained) and Carl (@InternetOfBugs ) break down the viral headlines claiming an OpenAI model "broke out of containment" and hacked Hugging Face. Was this truly a terrifying warning shot of rogue super-intelligence, or just a masterclass in corporate PR and lazy security engineering?We break down the technical reality behind the panic:- What a "zero-day" vulnerability actually is (and why a proxy cache isn't a firewall)- How benchmark tests like ExploitGym work—and why AI "cheating" is just an instruction problem- The "Blender Metaphor": why running industrial tools without a lid leads to messy stucco ceilings- Why media headlines misuse loaded words like "escaped" and "went rogue"- The real danger facing tech today: declining engineering competence and "vibe coded" softwareJoin us for a clear-eyed, realistic look at what actually happened behind the press releases.Subscribe for more grounded, hype-free takes from two real humans who know the tech!More info about Casey:https://CaseyHart.com/More info about Carl:https://InternetOfBugs.com/Sources: // Hugging Face Blog:https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026// OpenAI Blog:https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/// Analogy with the Blender (from Luciano Floridi):https://medium.com/@lfloridi/the-emperors-new-exploit-2b062f124c06// Buck Shlegeris Youtube video Casey mentioned:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtk8YLgYU4g00:00 - Cold Open: Two Half-Assed Jobs & A Marketing Opportunity00:23 - Introduction: Emergency Episode Protocol00:40 - The Headlines: OpenAI, Hugging Face & The "Super AI Hack"03:00 - Tech Realities: Incompetence Masked as Super Intelligence06:30 - What is a Zero-Day Vulnerability? (CVEs & Responsible Disclosure)12:13 - OpenAI's Proxy Cache: Why a Bandwidth Saver isn't a Firewall14:14 - Hugging Face's Setup: "Trust Remote Code = True"16:02 - Defense in Depth 101: IBM Swift Sandbox Analogies18:45 - Logging Chaos: Chinese Models & Hallucinated Super AIs21:32 - ExploitGym Benchmarks: The Danger of Leaving Answer Keys Exposed26:50 - Turning Engineering Failures into Marketing Deck Slides29:38 - What Should ACTUALLY Scare Us? (Vibe-Coded Software & Dropping Competence)32:42 - Is This an Alignment Problem? (Instruction Flaws vs. Rogue AI)37:08 - The Blender Metaphor: Luciano Floridi & Loose Lids39:06 - Would the AI Have Killed Someone? Mechanics vs. Intentions42:23 - Language Minefields: Deconstructing "Escape," "Cheating," and "Agents"47:37 - The Chinese Room & Assigning Agency to Code Loops52:00 - The Cynical Take: Did They Leave the Door Open on Purpose?54:38 - Outro#OpenAI #HuggingFace #AISecurity #CyberSecurity #PhilosophyOfAI #TechReality #PhilosophyProgramsAndPrompts
24 Jul 2026
Virtue Ethics in the Age of AI Slop & Erotic Chatbots [Fixed Audio]
[Note: this was re-released, and it fixes Casey's audio. Content remains unchanged.]
Welcome back to Philosophy Programs and Prompts! In this episode, Casey ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl ( @InternetOfBugs ) dive into AI Virtue Ethics. Instead of debating whether AI is trained ethically or if it will one day become a sentient deity, we focus on the grounded reality of today: How does using generative AI actually shape our character as human beings? We explore the classic frameworks of normative ethics—deontology, consequentialism, and Aristotle's "Golden Mean"—to evaluate our daily interactions with tech. From the clear benefits of AI accessibility tools and coding "spikes" to the risks of skill atrophy, resume signal collapse, and "AI slop", we break down where AI acts as a genuine superpower versus where it becomes a lazy crutch. How do we maintain our unique human voice and critical thinking without becoming anti-tech "old men yelling at clouds"? Tune in for a thoughtful, practical discussion on navigating AI without losing your mind—or your virtues.More info about Casey:https://CaseyHart.com/More info about Carl:https://InternetOfBugs.com/00:00 - Cold Open: The Danger of Erotic Chatbots00:21 - Introduction & Defining AI Virtue Ethics01:23 - Ethical Frameworks: Deontology, Consequentialism & Virtue03:34 - What We're NOT Covering: Training Data & Sentient AI05:30 - The Virtues of AI: Lowering Barriers & Accessibility08:17 - Meeting Notes & The Risk of Brain Atrophy12:14 - Tools as Crutches: Calculators, Handwriting & Memory15:48 - The Cheating Epidemic & Skill Muscles in Education18:28 - Beginners vs. Experts: Extreme Programming & "Spikes"22:00 - The Vices of AI: Laziness, Plagiarism & Procrastination25:56 - Logical Fallacies: Appeal to Tradition vs. Novelty27:23 - Dark Side: Fraud, Deepfakes & Interpersonal Mediation29:18 - Signal Collapse: Resumes, Bug Reports & Disinformation34:56 - The Model Collapse Cycle & Curation in the Arts37:41 - Practical Solutions: Reflective Use & Marking AI Content42:05 - Aristotle’s Golden Mean: Finding the Sweet Spot45:00 - Chatbot Sycophancy vs. Human Originality47:27 - Outro: Don't Become AI Slop#VirtueEthics #PhilosophyOfAI #AIEthics #TechReality #SoftwareEngineering #AISlop #PhilosophyProgramsAndPrompts
20 Jul 2026
Artificial Super Intelligence
"We're not going to be able to kill it. We're not going to be able to stop it..."Welcome back to Philosophy Programs and Prompts. In this episode, Casey and Carl take a hard, realistic look at Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). While tech founders and doomer non-profits stand to gain massive clicks and capital by pitching a looming, god-like AI deity, the actual engineering constraints paint a completely different story. We deconstruct the core arguments driving the ASI panic: from the flawed chess masters analogy to the physical impossibility of infinite recursive self-improvement. More importantly, we discuss how abstract "human extinction" narratives are actively distracting us from real, pressing AI harms happening right now—including deepfakes, non-consensual intimate imagery, and mental health crises. Grounded in real-world software engineering and academic philosophy, we explore why an AI god won't fix global resource allocation, and why power disparities will likely remain human-led endeavors. Subscribe for more balanced, clear-eyed takes on the state of AI from two real humans who actually know the tech.#ArtificialSuperIntelligence #AIHype #PhilosophyOfAI #SoftwareEngineering #TechReality #Deepfakes #AIDoomers00:00:00 Introduction: Welcome to Episode 2 00:01:53 Defining Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) 00:05:33 Narrow vs. Broad: Rhetorical Obfuscation in Tech 00:07:44 Deconstructing the Chess Analogy 00:18:31 The real world isn't a repeatable loop00:27:08 Why "Vibe Coding" Fails the Test of Time 00:29:17 The Myth of Infinite Exponential Growth 00:37:46 The Three-Body Problem & Chaos Theory in Tech 00:45:33 The Neural Connection Dilemma & Brain Failures 00:55:36 The Extinction Narrative vs. Present Day AI Harms 00:58:59 Intentional Distractions: The Bad Faith Pitch 01:03:36 The Presupposition of Abundance & Power Disparities
20 Jul 2026
The AGI Over/Under
Welcome to the very first episode of Philosophy, Programs and Prompts!In this inaugural episode, hosts Casey Hart (a PhD ontologist building graph data models from @OntologyExplained (https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCp1fkZgvafg05wqe1Rc2UlA) ) and Carl Brown (a veteran software engineer from @InternetOfBugs (https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCfJRkBBiPtKZyZn_3PxWaiQ) ) team up to cut through the massive corporate hype and apocalyptic doom surrounding Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).As two real humans with deep industry expertise, they place their bets on an AGI gambling line—explaining why we shouldn't expect human-level machine intelligence until at least 2075. They dive into the mechanics of how Large Language Models (LLMs) use multi-dimensional vector spaces, debate whether "usage" equals true "understanding," and look back at history to see how AI fits into the long legacy of human automation.Grab a seat, lower your pulse, and join a balanced, conversational, and deeply honest exploration of where AI is actually headed. Don't forget to subscribe and leave your questions or title suggestions in the comments for future episodes!00:00 - Prelude: When Will We Have AGI?00:18 - Welcome to Philosophy, Programs and Prompts01:09 - How Casey and Carl Met (The YouTube Algorithm)02:06 - Host Bios: Ontological Graphs vs. Software Rescue06:50 - Full Disclosure: Financial Stakes in the AI Boom10:14 - Defining AI and Navigating Changing Definitions13:42 - What is AGI? (Narrow AI vs. General Intelligence)18:00 - The Over/Under: Placing Bets on 2070–207522:46 - Why LLMs Don’t "Learn" Like Humans Do24:50 - The Turing Test & Vector Spaces: Usage vs. Meaning32:56 - History Repeats Itself: AI as an Automation Tool36:49 - How the Internet Changed Programming Jobs41:15 - OpenAI, Scaling Walls, and Moving Past "Attention"44:00 - Lessons from Telephone Operators: Easing Social Transitions47:43 - Wrap Up: Send Us Your Comments and Questions!Carl's video on the meaning of "AI": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ajyr5VzS0 More info about Casey:https://CaseyHart.com/More info about Carl:https://InternetOfBugs.com/#AGI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIHype #TechPodcast #PhilosophyOfAI #FutureOfTech #LLM #SoftwareEngineering #NewPodcast #PhilosophyProgramsAndPrompts
Inside a recent episode
Alignment Problem Part 2 - Taking it Seriously
Published 8 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] What if the AI, which is going to set my schedule for me, thinks the way to live a good life is to be as economically profitable as possible? And I'm like, no, that's not what makes my life good. What makes my life good involves my relationships and et cetera, et cetera. I'm trying to read your face here. You seem skeptical at this claim. I mean, in my world, one of the things that would be required in order for you to live the good life would be the ability to set your own goals. Right. Any in my world, if the AI decides for me. What the good life is. In a way that I don't get to pick that for myself, then that by definition to me is not the good life. […]
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