AI just wrote a #1 hit country song, and Hunter and Daniel tear into what that means for music, copyright, and the future of creative work as AI-generated tracks start topping real-world charts. Along the way they dive into celebrity voice cloning, Coca-Cola’s uncanny AI holiday ad, the rise of “AI slop,” and why AI coding and AI creativity in general is accelerating faster than anyone’s ready for.

Hunter and Daniel break down whether the AI bubble fueled by trillion-dollar compute plans, staggering losses, and OpenAI’s rumored bailout plea is finally about to burst. Along the way, they dive into GPT-5.1’s new personalities, Montana’s “Right to Compute,” the state of AGI in 2025, and why 2026 might become the year robots take over everything except the Billboard charts.

Companies are blaming “AI layoffs” for massive job cuts, but the numbers reveal a messier truth as AI efficiency, recession pressure, and shareholder math all collide in ways your boss won’t admit. From Amazon and Duolingo to generative news anchors and machine-learning Oreos, we break down how automation is reshaping work faster (and weirder) than anyone is prepared for.

Hunter and Daniel unpack the illusion behind the $20,000 Neo Robot, a supposed “AI” home assistant with a VR enabled secret. From the ethics of teleoperated labor to Albania’s “pregnant” AI minister and Tesla’s flirty chatbot, they explore where artificial intelligence stops and human influence begins.

Hunter and Daniel dissect how OpenAI’s ChatGPT now refuses to identify Donald Trump in photos, questioning whether this is responsible AI safety or creeping censorship. Along the way, they unravel how corporate control, ad-driven models, and AI in education are shaping and possibly warping our digital future.

Hunter and Daniel dive into the strange collision of faith, art, and automation starting with a three-eyed AI-generated pinball monster that sparks debate over creativity and stolen souls. From there, they unravel the “AI Rapture” and how generative tools, job-replacing automation, and the rise of the 10× engineer might decide who gets uploaded to digital heaven and who’s left behind.

Daniel challenges Hunter’s skepticism by using Claude Code to build a functioning Facebook-like app complete with authentication, feeds, likes, and a database in just 20 minutes. The two then spiral into a thought experiment about AI-run startups, debating whether AI agents could (or should) become the CEOs and marketers of the future while humans become their assistants.

CEOs are blaming AI for layoffs, but the data doesn’t back it up. Hunter and Daniel expose how “AI productivity” hype is masking old-fashioned cost cutting, unpacking Salesforce’s job cuts, Anthropic’s doomsday claims, and the truth behind GPT-5’s impact on real work.

Anthropic claims its new model, Claude 4.5, can code autonomously for 30 hours straight, but Hunter Powers and Daniel Bishop put that boast to the test and reveal it collapses after roughly ten minutes without human feedback. Along the way, they debate whether AI automation is genuine progress or just “automation theater,” and why Meta’s humanoid-robot ambitions may prove the same illusion on a larger scale.

Trump’s new AI-generated video blurs the line between propaganda and parody, and wel dissect how it signals the start of a post-truth political era. We also break down OpenAI’s Sora 2, Veo, and cameo tech showing how AI video is now so realistic it threatens to erase the boundary between fact and fiction.

After feeding 120 of our own podcast episodes into Claude AI, we let it turn the tables and interview us, confronting everything from AI coworkers and digital relationships to whether we’d sell our souls for $10 million. What follows is a chaotic, funny, and surprisingly philosophical showdown between two humans and the machine that knows them best.

Lionsgate’s billion-dollar AI movie experiment with Runway ML collapsed before a single film was made, exposing Hollywood’s overhyped faith in generative filmmaking and the legal minefield around AI-trained content. Meanwhile, Hunter and Daniel explore how tools like Google Veo 3 and projects such as the Wizard of Oz at Sphere Vegas reveal that AI works best as a creative amplifier, not a studio replacement.

Hunter and Daniel dive into Google’s new Nano Banana AI, a shockingly capable image-editing model that could threaten Photoshop’s throne while redefining creative work. Along the way they spar over AI schlock, recording-consent ethics, and how tools like Figma AI, GPT-5-High, and Napkin AI signal the next big shift in how humans and machines design together.

Hunter and Daniel break down Meta’s new Ray-Ban AI glasses, exploring the flashy features like display overlays, gesture controls, and real-time translation. Despite the hype, they highlight privacy concerns, clunky use cases, and explain why unlike most new gadgets these glasses aren’t worth buying yet.

Hunter and Daniel dive into the high-stakes debate around AI therapy, OpenAI’s age-gating rules on self-harm conversations, and the legal and ethical risks of letting ChatGPT act like a therapist. Along the way, they tackle Anthropic’s surveillance ban, fears of an AGI-driven job apocalypse, and how AI is creeping into everything from dating apps to religion.

The boys unpack the rise of an AI protection racket from hackers threatening to train models on stolen art to labels signing AI artists. PLUS the flood of AI-generated “slop” podcasts and messy copyright loopholes. Then they debate how AI-written manifestos (hello, Tesla Grok) and boilerplate political speeches push us toward full-blown AI theater, and what that means for jobs, creativity, and culture.

Hunter and Daniel unpack reports that OpenAI can scan ChatGPT conversations and, in extreme cases, refer them to law enforcement, sparking a sharp debate over privacy vs. safety and where “AI monitoring” becomes AI Big Brother. They also explore Sway AI’s proposal to moderate debates, whether AI should intervene in self-harm cases, and the likelihood of future political debates being run by an AI.

In this episode, Hunter and Daniel explore how AI is transforming hacking—climbing bug bounty leaderboards, powering “vibe hacking,” and blurring the line between white-hat defense and black-hat attacks. They also tackle AI-generated misinformation, corporate AI walkbacks, massive infrastructure costs, and the unsettling future of copyright, IP, and the open internet.

Self-driving as a "cure" could crash the auto-insurance business by slashing accidents and car ownership, but nationwide adoption likely stalls 20–25 years as lawmakers protect jobs and grapple with liability. We then dive into AI taking over sales, from robo-negotiation and contract automation to eerie "dead bots" and digital souls, asking what happens when machines sell to us and even speak for our ancestors.

Is AI in a bubble—or just inside one? In this episode, we argue the one big reason AI is not a bubble: unlike past hype cycles (hi, blockchain), generative AI keeps unlocking new, practical use-cases and we’ve likely discovered only a tiny fraction so far. We also debate where the actual bubbles are (funding and frothy startups), why some companies may pop, and why the technology isn’t going anywhere. We dig into the difference between “AI is a bubble” vs “AI in a bubble,” why LLMs are already embedded in daily workflows, and how safety, regulation, and economics shape adoption. We touch on Sam Altman’s “money hose” moment, model safety moves (e.g., refusal features and cutoff behaviors), and the PR theater around “we won’t let you do X” policies. On the spicy side: we unpack calls for investigations into Grok’s adult-mode and the real risk vector—image deepfakes—plus why institutions crave reliability over edgelord vibes. Then we tackle kids + AI (parental controls, open-weights at home, and why an LLM can be like placing an unmonitored adult on a phone line), and policy flashpoints like Illinois restricting AI in therapy. Finally, we square off on the future of self-driving: will capitalism or insurance math decide when humans must hand over the wheel? If you want a fast, no-BS breakdown of whether AI is a bubble (and what actually bursts next), you’re in the right place. Like & subscribe for weekly, high-signal AI news and analysis—and tell us in the comments: what’s one use-case that proves AI’s staying power? --- 🎧 Listen & Subscribe 📱 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3EcvzkWDRFwnmIXoh7S4Mb?si=3d0f8920382649cc 🍎 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-might-be-self-aware/id1730993297 ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9DopLlG7IbOqV-WD25jcw?sub_confirmation=1 --- 📢 Engage If you learned something, drop a comment with your most convincing “AI is not a bubble” example (or your spiciest counter-argument). We read them all and may feature your take next episode. #AI #AInews #Podcast