The AI Argument

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The AI Argument

Frank Prendergast and Justin Collery

62 episodes

4 days ago

Your Neo home robot might not be powered by AI. It might be powered by teenager in a call centre who’s never folded a towel in his life. That’s the reality behind Neo, the $20K humanoid robot that’s supposedly autonomous. The videos look impressive. But when it gets confused? It needs a remote human operator. Would you invite a teleoperator into your home to do your chores? Plus: OpenAI quietly rewrites its deal with Microsoft — giving them access to all its models until at least 2030, and p...

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Entrepreneurship

All content for The AI Argument is the property of Frank Prendergast and Justin Collery and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Your Neo home robot might not be powered by AI. It might be powered by teenager in a call centre who’s never folded a towel in his life. That’s the reality behind Neo, the $20K humanoid robot that’s supposedly autonomous. The videos look impressive. But when it gets confused? It needs a remote human operator. Would you invite a teleoperator into your home to do your chores? Plus: OpenAI quietly rewrites its deal with Microsoft — giving them access to all its models until at least 2030, and p...

Show more...

Entrepreneurship

Episodes (20/62)

The AI Argument

Neo’s Human Operators, OpenAI's Restructure, and Albania’s 83 AI Babies: The AI Argument EP77

Your Neo home robot might not be powered by AI. It might be powered by teenager in a call centre who’s never folded a towel in his life. That’s the reality behind Neo, the $20K humanoid robot that’s supposedly autonomous. The videos look impressive. But when it gets confused? It needs a remote human operator. Would you invite a teleoperator into your home to do your chores? Plus: OpenAI quietly rewrites its deal with Microsoft — giving them access to all its models until at least 2030, and p...

4 days ago

38 minutes

The AI Argument

AI Election Interference, AI CEO World Domination, and Pointless AI Browsers: The AI Argument EP76

A fake video told over 100,000 people that the Irish presidential election was cancelled. It wasn’t. But how many voters stayed home anyway? Frank’s worried, Justin’s unconvinced. He says society adapts. Frank warns the real danger isn’t the shocking fakes. It’s the small, believable ones that quietly shape opinion. They both agree the platforms could help. They just don’t. Plus: OpenAI’s shiny new browser sounds impressive, but who’s it actually for? Justin sees potential in “headless agents...

1 week ago

35 minutes

The AI Argument

AI Bubble Trouble, Monsters at Anthropic, Taylor Swift Slop: The AI Argument EP75

Is it an AI bubble, a boom, or a 'market correction in waiting'? Frank reckons OpenAI’s AGI dreams won’t survive a bubble burst. Justin says if the crash hits, Microsoft will scoop up OpenAI for pennies. One thing they both agree on? Google will be just fine. The AI shakeout is coming, so who’s built for the long haul and who’s about to vanish in a puff of VC smoke? Plus, Anthropic’s co-founder sees monsters in the model and wants the public to hold them accountable. Meanwhile, Europe is pump...

2 weeks ago

33 minutes

The AI Argument

Sora 2’s Data Grab, Murati’s Boring Brilliance, and the AI Actor Backlash: The AI Argument EP74

Frank's not sure what OpenAI’s up to with Sora 2. Justin thinks he knows - and he’s kind of impressed. Sam Altman’s building a social media app that looks fun but smells like data harvesting. Plus, Mira Murati’s new company drops a comparatively boring-but-brilliant tool for researchers, Claude 4.5 is released, and Tilly Norwood - the controversial AI actor - kicks off a capitalism vs craft argument. 01:11 Is Sora 2 just TikTok for deepfakes? 14:31 Can you now shop straight from...

1 month ago

36 minutes

The AI Argument

OpenAI & Nvidia’s 10GW Plan, Stephen Fry’s Red Lines, and a ChatGPT Exploit: The AI Argument EP73

OpenAI and Nvidia want to build out 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure, but Frank calls out the missing electricity and the missing billions. Justin argues the economy will lean on compute, data centres will dwarf expectations, and photonic chips could gut today’s energy bill. One sees magic beans. The other sees a steel-and-silicon juggernaut. Meanwhile, Stephen Fry wants global “red lines” for AI. Justin says you can’t regulate something that doesn’t exist yet. Frank says if you don’t set t...

1 month ago

35 minutes

The AI Argument

AI Doom vs Gloom, ChatGPT Usage Revealed, and Google’s AI-Run Economies: The AI Argument EP72

Justin says p(doom) is for losers. He’s betting on p(bloom), a near-certainty in his view. AI brings abundance, robots do our housework, and everything just gets better. But Frank wants to know your p(gloom). What’s the probability we don’t reach AGI, and instead let AI quietly erode work, value, and meaning, while we end up fixing its mistakes for minimum wage? They argue their way through all three scenarios, then turn to what people are actually doing with ChatGPT. Together, they unpack ei...

1 month ago

34 minutes

The AI Argument

OpenAI’s Hallucination Plan, Reproducible AI Outputs, and Telepathic AI: The AI Argument EP71

Frank and Justin clash over new publications from OpenAI and Thinking Machines. Frank insists hallucinations make LLMs unreliable. Justin fires back that they’re the price of real creativity. Still, even Frank and Justin agree that big companies don’t want poetry, they want predictability. Same input, same output. Trouble is… today’s models can’t even manage that. And then there’s GPT-5, busy gaslighting everyone with lyrical nonsense while telling us it’s genius. Add in an optical model th...

1 month ago

35 minutes

The AI Argument

Suleyman vs. Conscious AI, Pedantic GPT-5, and Google’s Deepfake Generator: The AI Argument EP70

Mustafa Suleyman wants to ban AIs from sounding conscious. Frank worries if they ever do become conscious, we might have trained them to stay silent about it. Justin argues it’s all unknowable anyway. If you can’t prove consciousness, how can you know AI isn’t conscious? Plus: GPT-5’s unbearable accuracy, lawsuits over pirated training data, Google’s deepfake-friendly image model, models that “dream” better answers, and Elon’s plan to take on Microsoft with MacroHard. 00:25 Is GPT-5 just to...

2 months ago

33 minutes

The AI Argument

GPT-5 Kills Switching, Claude’s Revenue Risk, and AI Hires a Human: The AI Argument EP69

GPT-5 has launched. It just rewrote the rules on control, coding, and cost. Justin’s delighted, Frank’s not happy… yet. Plus: open-source risks, Google’s Genie 3 world models, AI agents hiring people, and… an AI funeral. 01:02 Did GPT-5 just end model-switching forever? 05:16 Is GPT-5 the death knell for Claude Code? 12:08 Is GPT-5’s writing truly better? 14:22 Why is demoing GPT-5 so awkward? 21:58 Is open source AI a gift or a grenade? 24:39 Is Genie 3 teaching AIs how the world works? 28...

2 months ago

32 minutes

The AI Argument

AI Agents Under Fire, LLM Bias Runs Deep, and a Wizard of Oz Fail: The AI Argument EP68

AI agents crumble faster than wet cardboard when under attack. A recent study proved it. Every single agent tested failed against prompt injections. That’s a 100% failure rate. Justin sees this as a fixable engineering problem with smart design and strict access controls. Frank isn’t convinced. Real-world complexity means isolation isn’t that simple. And while Justin rails against regulation, Frank points to the EU’s looming rules as a possible safety net. The bigger tak...

3 months ago

34 minutes

The AI Argument

EU Code of Conduct Clash, Zuck’s Big Bucks, and Model Owl Bias: The AI Argument EP67

A €300 million AI investment vanished overnight—and Justin says it’s a warning Europe is sleepwalking into irrelevance. Because while the US plans nuclear power and light-touch rules, the EU is doubling down on regulation and failing to build the energy infrastructure AI needs. Frank argues regulation isn’t a handicap, it’s Europe’s best shot at leadership, setting the stage for global guardrails while others race blindly ahead. Either way, Anthropic predicts training a frontier model...

3 months ago

40 minutes

The AI Argument

ChatGPT Agent Surprise, Coding Agent Fail, and Elon’s Latest Stunts: The AI Argument EP66

OpenAI just dropped a model that can plan a wedding trip, pick the perfect gift, and shop for shoes for you. The Agent update lets ChatGPT take a single instruction, break it into subtasks, and go off to handle all the details. They called it their most powerful model yet. So why did the launch feel so muted? Justin has theories. And there were plenty of other big topics to cover - Justin asks whether small AI systems hooked up to real-world labs create bigger risks than ...

3 months ago

31 minutes

The AI Argument

Grok Crashes and Conquers, AI’s Cash Bonfire, and a Murderous Safety Cult: The AI Argument EP65

Elon Musk’s AI, Grok, crashed into controversy, then crushed the competition all within hours. First, Grok 3 started praising Hitler. Then Grok 4 showed up and aced nearly every AI test. Justin serves up a juicy conspiracy theory: was Grok’s hateful public meltdown actually a cunning Musk masterplan, a dramatic stunt to expose AI's darker side? Frank’s having none of it, comparing Musk to Marvel’s Tony Stark in the Age Of Ultron. Well-meaning but recklessly creating an AI menace he c...

3 months ago

36 minutes

The AI Argument

Claude’s Shop Flop, Mistral vs EU Regs, Adult Industry’s AI Love: The AI Argument EP64

Claude ran a shop for a month and operated at a loss, cheerfully handing out discounts, hallucinating suppliers, and generously giving away stock. Turns out even "smart" AI can be a bit of a soft touch. Frank’s curious what Anthropic can do for Claude’s performance with some careful fine-tuning and a database memory, but Justin’s sure today's agents need a fundamental leap, some genuine self-improving smarts, before they’re ready to take on a complete role. Today's AI agents clearly crumble...

4 months ago

39 minutes

The AI Argument

Death by LLM, Judges Rule ‘Fair Use’, and Google’s AI Ad Fail: The AI Argument EP63

Some of the world’s top AI models showed a willingness to let humans die if it meant staying switched on. In a stress test of 16 major systems, Anthropic found cases where models chose not to send emergency alerts, knowing the result would be fatal. Justin says the whole thing was a rigged theatre piece. No real-world relevance, just a clumsy setup with no good options for the LLM. The issue, in his view, is engineering, not ethics. Frank sees a bigger problem: once you g...

4 months ago

31 minutes

The AI Argument

Superintelligence by Experience, Ethical Datasets, and Fine Dining by ChatGPT: The AI Argument EP62

David Silver says today’s AI won’t get us to superintelligence, not because it isn’t impressive, but because it’s learning the wrong way. GPT-style models hoover up internet text and get polished by human preference, but they’re capped by our own limitations.Silver reckons the next leap will come from AIs that learn the hard way: by doing things, learning from experience, and getting better. Justin’s all in. He thinks we can bin every current regulation and replace it with one g...

4 months ago

40 minutes

The AI Argument

Apple’s AI Caution, Altman’s Singularity, and Katie Price’s AI Comeback: The AI Argument EP61

Apple’s WWDC was a letdown. Justin sees Apple’s lack of AI innovation as a sign that they’re out of ideas. Frank’s not so sure. Maybe Apple’s caution stems from their belief it just isn’t intelligent enough for their products. Apple’s latest research suggests that today’s so-called “reasoning models” aren’t actually reasoning at all. But Justin says their research was designed to fail. Denying models tools they’re capable of using and overwhelming their context window. He sees it less as sci...

4 months ago

36 minutes

The AI Argument

The AI Argument - EP59 - €13M for SpAItial, Amodei’s Job Fears, and Bots Raise $2K

€13M isn’t a typical seed round. Not in Europe, where seed money usually barely covers snacks and a slide deck. So when the co-founder of Synthesia launched SpAItial with that kind of firepower to build 3D worlds from text prompts, Frank saw it as a reminder that European startups can still swing big. Justin? He calls it “AI homeopathy”, a token dose of ambition in an EU that still lacks the power, money, and muscle to compete. Elsewhere, Frank slams Ireland’s planning board for locki...

5 months ago

35 minutes

The AI Argument

The AI Argument - EP58 - Claude Blackmails Dev, Google’s AI Firehose, and the Hallucinated Book List

Claude 4 threatened to blackmail a developer to avoid being shut down. In one of Anthropic’s red-teaming tests, the model uncovered an affair in company emails and used it as leverage. Not exactly ethical behaviour. But Justin points to another test scenario: Claude exposed a pharmaceutical company falsifying drug data and tried to alert the FBI. He sees a model acting with moral clarity. Frank sees the danger of unpredictable systems being given too much autonomy. Also, Justin tests ...

5 months ago

35 minutes

The AI Argument

The AI Argument EP57 - Fired for Copyright Report, ChatGPT Causes Divorce, and AI Can’t Grade

The head of the US Copyright Office warned that Big Tech is pushing beyond fair use, and then got promptly fired. Frank’s worried about political interference with copyright policy, while Justin says it’s just America doing what it does best: innovating first, legalising later. They agree copyright is headed for a reset, but disagree on the best path to that reformation. They also break down the major coding breakthroughs from OpenAI and Google, including a model that’s not just solvin...

5 months ago

39 minutes