For our Halloween finale, Carolyn Ford invites two favorite “AI conjurers”, Dave Egts “Mr. X,” public-sector field CTO at Mulesoft, and Laura Klebanow, founder & chief storyteller at Show & Tell, into the Tech Transforms cauldron. Each brings a “secret AI ingredient”: Carolyn composes whimsical Suno-generated theme music (after a prompt-crafting detour through ChatGPT), Laura pushes image creation and Gemini’s career-planner for playful, practical use, and Dave reimagines Gemini’s children’s-storybook gem to craft customer-hero narratives, plus a Scooby-Doo-style Tech Transforms tale.
Then we stir in the shadows: misinformation at scale, AI “rights,” bioethics (organoids/bodyoids), job disruption vs. reskilling, and how creativity can demystify AI without sugarcoating risks. The trio closes with rapid-fire “treats & tricks,” classroom-to-boardroom starter tips (talk with AI, don’t just query it; red-team your ideas), and a reminder to “find your beautiful” use the tools to clear the junk so humans can do what only humans do.
Brewed takeaways:
Show links:
We Give Thanks
Special Guests: Carolyn Ford and Laura Klebanow.
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about hidden signals in AI models and hidden signals in birds!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about smart glasses and AI existential dread!
Follow Up
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about e-tattoos, AI agent blackmail, and AI memory dossiers!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about fake bodies, fake passports, fake speakers, a fake Commodore 64 CD-ROM, and Erich Morisse being mean to AI
Cutting Room Floor
Character Card: Dave Egts, the Tech Conduit
Character Card: Gunnar Hellekson, the Organized Sage
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This week Dave and Gunnar talk about best practices for manipulating AI models to enslave humanity!
Cutting Room Floor
In this episode, Carolyn Ford welcomes back Dave Egts, Field CTO at MuleSoft, to Tech Transforms to explore the transformative power of AI in 2025. They dive into Dave’s top five AI predictions, with a special focus on the rise of agentic AI—AI that doesn’t just suggest, but acts. Dave explains the difference between generative AI and intelligent agents, why integration via APIs is the key to agent success, and how government agencies can prepare now.
Listeners will learn:
What “large action models” (LAMs) are, and how they differ from large language models
How AI agents are already reducing friction in Salesforce and Slack
Why AI success depends on access to high-quality, actionable data
What’s driving the shift toward small language models and what that means for secure, on-device AI
Why “agent-washing” is the new “AI-washing”—and how to spot it
What makes a truly impactful agent vs. a glorified chatbot
Dave’s favorite sci-fi robot, a monkey’s paw superpower wish, and what tech breakthrough he thinks is coming next
Key Topics:
[00:00] Intro & Dave’s blog: “5 AI Predictions for 2025”
[03:00] What’s an AI agent? Why they’re different from GenAI
[07:30] Real-world examples from Salesforce: Agentforce in action
[14:00] The importance of APIs for agent success
[15:45] Government use cases & security considerations
[18:00] Internal AI agents that reduce toil (meeting schedulers, IT help, expense reports)
[22:00] Cylon references & the power of digital labor in public sector
[29:00] Small Language Models: Why smaller might be better
[36:00] LLM Routers explained
[38:00] Fun Tech Talk Q&A (Superpowers, overhyped trends, sci-fi names)
Resources Mentioned:
📖 Dave's Blog: 5 AI Predictions for 2025: Opportunities Tech Leaders Must Seize This Year
💡 Trailhead Learning Platform from Salesforce: Learn to build your own agent
🤖 Help.Salesforce.com – Try Agentforce
📺 Forbidden Planet (Robby the Robot)
🐒 Monkey’s Paw story reference
Special Guest: Carolyn Ford.
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about cockroaches with backpacks, hydrogels with Pong, and hackers with digital license plates!
Cutting Room Floor
Grape Job!
This week, Dave and Gunnar talk about fake faces, fake video calls, fake parking lots, fake bagpipes, fake lollipops, and fake gas leaks!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about restaurants that don’t exist, restaurants with robots, and robots with speed cameras and thermite!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about thinking caps, solar caps, and transparent bodies!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk with Steven Pousty about GIS, open source theology, and AI!
We Give Thanks
Special Guest: Steven Pousty.
This week, NotebookLM talks about the Dave and Gunnar Show Episode 263!
1. Propaganda and its Relevance Today:
2. Deep Fakes and Digital Deception:
3. The Airbnb Crypto Mining Incident:
4. The Power of Questioning and "The Coaching Habit":
5. AI and the Blurring of Realities:
Quiz
Answer Key
Essay Questions
Glossary of Key Terms
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about electricity theft, identity theft, and coaching!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks
This week, Dave and Gunnar talk about electric vehicle skeuomorphism, people influencing AIs, AIs influencing people, and people influencing AIs influencing people!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about raising standards on masks and raising our standards on compiling reliable gazetteers with BS 7666!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about another fake university, Brain Organoids as a Service (BOaaS?), and policing with drones!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about the upsides and downsides of superalignment!
Cutting Room Floor
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about audible trackers, coworker avatars, and local deals on slightly used toenail clippers!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks
This week Dave and Gunnar talk about AI for fake law firms, AI for politicians, drones for electric vehicles, and paid memberships for Chuck E. Cheese!
Cutting Room Floor
We Give Thanks