I’m an objectively poor manager. It’s not my skill set. I don’t have a ton of patience with people. I get frustrated easily when people don’t follow instructions. As a GenXer and the son of an Army captain, I grew up in a culture where management followed a strict command and control structure. So I…
_Almost Timely News: 🗞️ My Late 2026 AI Tech Stack (2026-10-25) :: View in Browser_ The Big Plug(s) 🚗 Missed MAICON 2026? You can catch the replay of my session here! ✍️ Enroll in my new course, AI for Writers and learn how to make AI write better. My Unofficial LinkedIn Algorithm Guide is updated…
Here’s the thing about LLMs and therapy. The fundamental nature of an LLM is probabilistic. That’s literally what it is. LLMs by their nature understand probability. They understand frequency. They have enormous visibility into all the knowledge we’ve put online. They have no true understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, moral or not.…
As I often paraphrase from the first Captain America movie, AI will take the good and make it better, and take the bad and make it worse. The present-day education system is a model developed in the early 1900s, funded by Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Ford, and the barons of the day to manufacture obedient workers…
Summary In today's episode, I explain Will Reynolds’ warning that high AI visibility does not guarantee credibility or recommendation, using vacation rentals and synthetic visibility reports as examples. Here's what this means for you. You need to examine context, sentiment, and recommendations instead of treating brand mentions as proof of success. You'll also learn these…
The thing about generative AI optimization or whatever it is you want to call it, is that when models run into low confidence answers in most tools these days, what do they do? That’s right, they trigger a web search. So if you’re good at regular SEO, you’ve got 90% of the problem solved for…
3 receipts from MAICON Day 1: “The risk is not that AI does the work. The risk is that AI does the work and we never learn from it.” – Paul Roetzer quoting Tobi Lutke “In the Google Era, visible = recommended. In the AI Era, visible != recommended.” – Wil Reynolds “America now spends…
Summary In today's episode, I examine whether today's AI can feel pain, possess consciousness, or convincingly imitate both. Here's what this means for you. You need to distinguish sophisticated language and behavior from actual inner experience as you evaluate increasingly agentic systems. You'll also learn these concepts: how current silicon-based systems mimic pain without possessing…
Choose good or fast. There’s a knob with two settings when we’re using AI research tools: quality and speed. And there’s no middle setting, because a middle setting would deliver half-assed results that were neither fast nor correct. The more I use AI tools for research, the more I realize that you only get two…
Summary In today's episode, I explain how generative AI can help solve cold cases and why massive evidence archives demand specialized retrieval systems and real-world detective expertise. Here's what this means for you. You can tackle complex investigations by combining targeted AI searches with indexed data, expert-designed questions, and lessons from skilled investigators instead of…
