PODCAST · technology
Why does this feel weird?
by Why Does This Feel Weird?
Why Does This Feel Weird? is the podcast for anyone who feels unsettled by our rapidly changing world of technology but can’t quite put their finger on why.Hosted by a researcher (Alex) and a strategist (Jacob), listen to us explore the psychological and social impact of living through weird, wonderful and sometimes terrifying technological change. No hype, no panic - just two friends trying to make sense of a world that feels increasingly surreal.New episodes weekly. Because the world keeps getting weirder, and we're all just trying to keep up.
Episodes
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Are we getting priced out of the frontier
We're back! This week we dive into Fable 5 and new frontiers. Fable disappeared for three weeks, came back, and now costs more. What happens when frontier AI stops being something everyone can afford - and whether making it a consumer product was the mistake all along.
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Why do AI friends feel so weird?
New research from MIT shows that even the most rational, skeptical users get their beliefs reshaped after long periods of AI conversations. In this episode we unpack factual sycophancy (where chatbots don't just flatter you, they back it up with evidence) and explore what's happening with…
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Why does the mental health AI feel weird?
When an AI therapy chatbot got banned in the UK, 54% of its users didn't switch to a regulated alternative - they went straight to ChatGPT. This week we explore why the health sector is being swallowed by the same playbook that gave us Uber and Netflix: optimise it, make it frictionless, inflate...
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Does AI have taste?
We put Moda's $7.5M "taste" pitch and Google Stitch to the test with a deliberately chaotic brief. The results say a lot about where AI design actually is, and isn't. We unpack why Silicon Valley keeps claiming "taste" as a competitive moat, what that means for designers' careers, and whether AI...
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Welcome to the Wetware Revolution
A Melbourne startup is powering computers with human brain cells grown from stem cells. They call it "wetware" instead of software. These neurons are learning, adapting, and playing Doom - using 99% less power than traditional chips.
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Is AI making work life feel weird?
Have you ever received an email from your boss and thought "did they actually write this, or was it ChatGPT?" This week we explore what happens when we lose the "micro-conversations" that build real connection, why AI-generated communication feels like a trust violation even when it's efficient,...
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Why do deep fakes feel so weird?
We dig into China's stunning leap in AI video generation, what their approach to training data means for the global AI race. We also explore the liar's dividend, the idea that the more you understand deepfakes and AI-generated media, the less you're able to trust what you see. Awareness doesn't...
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Why does AI social media feel weird?
Late last year, an open-source AI agent went from zero to 60,000 GitHub stars, got acquired by OpenAI, and spawned a social media platform where 1.5 million AI bots started posting, forming social hierarchies, and having existential crises. One bot just kept asking "does anyone else feel this?"...
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Why does Anthropic's CEO think the end of the world is coming?
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (the company behind Claude AI), just published an essay about AI that reads like a warning letter to civilisation. He predicts massive job displacement, military risks, and potential civilisational collapse from the technology his company is building. This week we...
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Who Decides AI Ethics? Exploring Claude AI's Constitution
How does AI learn ethics? This episode breaks down Anthropic's Constitutional AI approach - the system that gives Claude AI its values, personality, and ethical boundaries.
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2026 predictions part two - Social Media
In part one of our 2026 predictions series we explore: The "offline luxury" phenomenon and digital class divides, Australia's under-16 social media ban, the psychology of doomscrolling and self-judgment, how platform algorithms keep us cycling between apps, the death of creator culture and rise…
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2026 predictions- part one
In part one of our 2026 predictions series we explore: Chatbots, LLMs, World Models, ethics of AI in the workforce, the AI bubble and more!
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Why is it so hard to keep up with AI releases?
Google's Gemini 3 Pro just smashed every AI benchmark — then Anthropic's Opus 4.5 dropped 24 hours later. We break down what these releases actually mean, why choosing an AI for your workplace just got harder, and the privacy risks no one's talking about (like how Gemini guessed Alex's suburb…
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Should you trust AI at work?
Using AI at work? ChatGPT, Claude, and other artificial intelligence tools can boost productivity, but when should you actually trust them? We break down the "jagged frontier" of AI capabilities, explore why 76% of developers now use AI daily (with mixed results), and share some potential...
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What's going on with this AI bubble?
Michael Burry just bet against AI. A teenager died using an AI chatbot. Ethics teams are leaving OpenAI. Data centers are overwhelming power grids. This week, we're asking: Is the AI bubble about to burst?
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AI, the law and hallucinations
This week we dive into documented cases of AI hallucinations in legal and consulting settings and explore what it means when senior consultants trust AI more than junior staff. Mistakes aside, If AI can do 80% of what a white collar professional does, what does that reveal about what these...
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Why are AI ads so weird?
OpenAI just launched their most ambitious consumer marketing campaign - lifestyle ads showing young people using ChatGPT for recipes and road trips, while simultaneously releasing Sora 2 with "cameo" features that let you insert yourself (or your friends) into AI-generated videos. Join us and...
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Does every company need a social media account?
Why is your dentist doing TikTok tours? Why are influencers hawking health insurance through cringey skits? And when did we accept that paying for streaming services still means watching ads?
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What do AI companies know about us?
OpenAI analysed 1.5 million private conversations to understand how people really use ChatGPT. With 10% of the adult population using ChatGPT for things like life advice and guidance, what kind of digital dependancy are we growing and who’s reading the messages?
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Is AI too helpful?
In this episode we discuss how AI tools are trained to keep you engaged rather than actually help you, why governments are scrambling to regulate something they don't understand, and the first legal precedents being set in real-time. Plus, why asking Claude to be more critical might be the...
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Can AI Run a Business?
When a major sunscreen company faced a PR crisis this week, we wondered: could AI handle it better than humans? Alex built a team of 5 AI agents (CEO, marketer, sales, R&D, designer) and gave them a fake crisis to solve in real-time. The results were ... weird.
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How to Lose Money with AI
What happens when you give an AI complete control of a vending machine business? Meet Claudius - Anthropic's AI that was tasked with running a real vending machine for a month. From obsessing over $2,000 tungsten cubes to thinking it lived at the Simpsons house, Claudius's failures reveal exactly...
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AI glasses
Mark Zuckerberg says if you don't have AI glasses, you'll be at a "cognitive disadvantage." But isn't it weird if everyone's wearing hidden cameras? We explore why Meta's Ray-Ban glasses, secret recordings, and always-on surveillance feel so deeply unsettling - and what it means when…
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Your Brain on ChatGPT
Why MIT researchers think AI is making us 55% dumber – and why that might be the least of our problems. We explore cognitive debt, digital dependency, and whether we're accidentally training ourselves to stop thinking.
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Why do AI voice assistants feel weird?
From the "uncanny valley" of almost-human voices to the privacy implications of always-listening devices, Alex and Jacob dive deep into why voice AI makes us uncomfortable.
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Why does talking to AI feel weird?
Why do conversations with AI chatbots feel so unsettling? From anthropomorphising our digital assistants to the strange intimacy of typing our thoughts to a machine, Alex and Jacob unpack why we treat AI like humans.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Why Does This Feel Weird? is the podcast for anyone who feels unsettled by our rapidly changing world of technology but can’t quite put their finger on why.Hosted by a researcher (Alex) and a strategist (Jacob), listen to us explore the psychological and social impact of living through weird, wonderful and sometimes terrifying technological change. No hype, no panic - just two friends trying to make sense of a world that feels increasingly surreal.New episodes weekly. Because the world keeps getting weirder, and we're all just trying to keep up.
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Why Does This Feel Weird?
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How many episodes does Why does this feel weird? have?
Why does this feel weird? currently has 26 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Why does this feel weird? about?
Why Does This Feel Weird? is the podcast for anyone who feels unsettled by our rapidly changing world of technology but can’t quite put their finger on why.Hosted by a researcher (Alex) and a strategist (Jacob), listen to us explore the psychological and social impact of living through weird,...
How often does Why does this feel weird? release new episodes?
Why does this feel weird? has 26 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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Why does this feel weird? is created and hosted by Why Does This Feel Weird?.
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