We're entering into an era where generational disruptions in technology have the potential to shift power back into the hands of the people and the planet.
AI is giving super powers to the masses; open digital money is uprooting the legacy financial system; the 3rd iteration of the web means an internet run by the people, for the people; and a 4th industrial revolution might help us make food, buildings and everything without killing the planet at the same time.
There's some hope hiding in plain sight and I'm going on a journey to find and explore it.
Casting Spells for a Living: Prompting, AI “Magic,” and the Superpower ShiftJonathan revisits a 3.5-year-old episode and argues it has aged well as generative AI now turns ideas into apps, sites, songs, videos, and images, making human–AI interaction feel like “casting spells.”
Reflecting on prompt engineering, they describe iterative prompting as a transient UX phase or a new loose form of programming, and connect today’s viral AI fabrications to a future where technology is indistinguishable from magic (citing Arthur C. Clarke).
He worries society isn’t ready for everyone to have these “superpowers,” predicting disruption to professions, labor pricing, and the internet’s content makeup, alongside risks of abuse and regulatory backlash.
Despite the challenges, he's optimistic, urging people to learn these tools, re-educate around imagination and creativity, and look ahead to AI moving from digital creation into 3D models, robotics, and the physical world.00:00 New Intro01:04 Is it prompt engineering or just incantations?03:20 Theme Song03:20 Introduction04:18 The UX of being a super powered wizard?05:42 How our modern world would look to someone from the 1950s.07:12 What happens when all people have magical super powers?08:19 What we can learn from the stories09:36 The cost of getting superpowers11:33 Looking forward to super powers 12:28 Acknowledgements12:28 Conclusion
6 Jul 2026
43. Agentic Loops - The Loop Engineering Debate
Go to my YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@techbackcontrol) to see the video version of this podcast.
In this episode, I explore six different things that I don't think we were expecting or ready for, but they're coming due to AI.
Follow @TechBackControl (https://x.com/TechBackControl)for the infographics and visuals which accompany this episode.
Agentic Loops and Loop Engineering: Who Controls the Loop?This episode explains why “agentic loops” suddenly became a hot topic in early June, sparked by Boris Cherny saying he no longer prompts Claude much because “the loops” do it, Peter Steinberger urging people to stop prompting coding agents and instead design loops, and Adi Osmani naming it “loop engineering,” which drew both “you invented the for loop” ridicule and warnings it’s only for a tiny minority. It traces the evolution from ReAct (reason–act–observe) and reflection, through Jeffrey Huntley’s “Ralph Wiggum” bash loop and Andrej Karpathy’s Autoresearch optimization loop, to today’s formal loop specs in tools like Codex and Claude Code (e.g., /loop or /goal) that define verification and stopping criteria. The key debate is control, cost, and failure modes: infinite-scale loops can burn money if mis-specified, shifting humans from “in the loop” to “on the loop” to set goals, guardrails, budgets, and success measures.00:00 Why Everything Is Loopy00:32 The Loop Engineering Spark01:50 Who Controls The Loop02:14 ReAct And Early Agents02:49 Ralph Wiggum Goes Viral03:45 Autoresearch And Optimization04:29 Modern Loop Specs In Tools05:34 Stacked Loops And Scale06:31 Infinite Failure Modes07:12 Humans In Loop To On Loop08:27 Shift Left And Control Surface09:27 What Happens Next10:15 Closing Thoughts
1 May 2026
42. You're not ready for these latest change due to AI
Go to my YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@techbackcontrol) to see the video version of this podcast.
In this episode, I explore six different things that I don't think we were expecting or ready for, but they're coming due to AI.
Follow @TechBackControl (https://x.com/TechBackControl)for the infographics and visuals which accompany this episode.
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Podcast Authority Score: 46 / 100
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Engagement
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