Do Hard Things (Featuring: Jerry Seinfeld)

What happens when neat theoretical ideas about productivity are deployed in the messy real world? In this episode, Cal is joined by Haley Pulli, a productivity coach from the company DoneDaily, to discuss case studies of clients who initially struggled with some of Cal’s ideas and how they ultimately fixed the issues.

Tesla’s recent demo of a rocket-powered Roadster doing a kick-flick over a parked car touched a nerve in me. It seemed to epitomize changes to the tech sector in recent years that have been largely negative. In this short episode, I jump on the mic to explain some of my developing thoughts surrounding these ideas.

A lot of attention has been paid recently to examples of AI going “rogue.” What’s missing from this discussion, however, is a more detailed explanation of what specific types of systems are causing problems. Taking a closer look at this problem reveals an issue that’s much more narrow and much more avoidable than some of the frontier labs would like you to believe.

How do we stop from becoming so reliant on LLMs that we lose our ability to think. A new paper explores answers based on an unlikely source: rigorous mathematical models. In this episode, Cal explains the paper and its conclusions, arguing that once you cut through its complexity it yields a useful way of thinking about our current AI moment.

Cal Newport takes a critical look at recent AI News. Cal interviews Emile Torres who provides a stark warning about AI.