Act of Intelligence

Welcome to Act of Intelligence — a new podcast about AI tools, workflows, and the philosophy of building with them, hosted by Ajay Medury and Andrew Sierota Vu. In this pilot, a working software engineer and an IT Generalist compare notes on what it's actually like to build real software with AI coding agents like Claude Code.They get into plan mode and context management, the explosion of open-source "memory" tools for Claude, and the build-vs-buy trap of reinventing the wheel. Along the way: why "writing code is a solved problem" but shipping working software isn't, how the job is shifting from coder to technical PM / systems architect, the engineering fundamentals (DRY, modular design, conventions, spec-driven development) that suddenly matter more in the AI era, and a simple rule for how much to trust the machine — let the risk decide. Plus Andrew's first big AI build: resurrecting a decade-old Minecraft community from a 20-page wish list he never had time to finish.It never really ends — but for human sakes, we found a place to stop. Welcome to the Matrix. (00:00) - Intros — meet Ajay & Andrew (01:25) - What Claude Code actually is (a CLI loop) (03:37) - Plan mode vs. "super plan" (05:41) - Clearing context to reclaim your tokens (06:25) - The Claude memory-tool gold rush (claude-mem) (08:40) - "Mem Palace," impostor packages & bubble vibes (11:59) - Build vs. buy: don't reinvent the wheel (14:57) - Why understanding your own project matters (17:56) - "Writing code is a solved problem" — is it? (21:07) - From coder to technical PM / systems architect (22:48) - Modular design: building by "limbs" (25:58) - Validation & the "works on my machine" trap (26:58) - Reviving a decade-old Minecraft community (30:58) - DRY, the factory pattern & CLAUDE.md (36:47) - Conventions & standards files (38:11) - Design tenet: "don't waste the player's time" (39:02) - Reviewing & racing the compactor (39:32) - Spec-driven development ("Get Shit Done") (51:11) - The orchestrator + agent-swarm pattern (54:46) - Do old engineering rituals still apply? (58:15) - Trust should match the risk (59:49) - Wrap-up — Welcome to the Matrix