Intelligent Machines (Audio)
TWiT
The 21st Century began with the rise of the Internet and social media. The next decade will mark the rise of the Intelligent Machines. AI will inhabit all our devices from cars and appliances to smart phones and robots. The Intelligent Machines podcast explores the most exciting revolution humanity has ever seen, filled with promise and peril. More than ever we need to understand what these new devices will bring to our lives and how to make best use of them as the 21st century unfolds. On this show you'll meet the AI pioneers, inventors, and innovators who are about to disrupt every aspect of modern life. You'll learn what's real and what's hype, and you'll come away with a deep understanding of the intelligent future that awaits us all. You can join Club TWiT for $10 per month and get ad-free audio and video feeds for all our shows plus everything else the club offers...or get just this podcast ad-free for $5 per month.
New episodes every Wednesday.
New episodes every Wednesday.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 14, 2026 • 2h 44min
IM 870: Meet Me In Alaska - Are AI Content Filters Changing What We Read?
Chris Stokel-Walker, British tech journalist and author who teaches journalism, shows how he uses AI to filter the news. He explains building local LLM stacks, podcast monitoring pipelines, and training models on his archive. He argues for AI doing the first pass while humans handle reporting, and discusses ethics, reliability, and when to keep tools offline.
15 snips
May 7, 2026 • 2h 29min
IM 869: My Sentience is Going Up - Chatbots in Charge
Troy Hunt, creator of Have I Been Pwned and breach-monitoring pioneer, explains how his AI sidekick Bruce helps manage billions of compromised credentials. Short, engaging segments cover Bruce's hallucination of pricing, agent workflows that scan hacker forums, designing reliable agent context and costs, and plans to expose HIBP as usable LLM skills.
18 snips
Apr 30, 2026 • 2h 37min
IM 868: Happy Hamburgers Towing Timmy To The Sea - Can You Really Own Your AI?
Nirav Patel, founder and CEO of Framework, builds highly repairable, upgradeable laptops and desktops. He discusses why modular hardware and repairability matter. He explains designing user-upgradeable systems and building desktops to run local AI. He warns cloud consolidation threatens personal ownership and outlines making local AI compute accessible.
29 snips
Apr 23, 2026 • 2h 46min
IM 867: The Ketchup Effect - The Lines Are Too Damn Long
Ian Bogost, game designer and writer who studies objects and technology, argues that small sensory pleasures and constraints matter more than frictionless convenience. He talks about why waits and minor frustrations can be meaningful. He explores AI nudging people back into embodied tasks and how play, limits, and tactile delights shape our relationship with technology.
13 snips
Apr 16, 2026 • 2h 29min
IM 866: I'm Bonkers for Yonkers - Is Coding Dead?
Craig Mod, photographer, writer and walker in Japan who builds small AI tools and a members-only social app. He recounts creating a calm, personal Twitter-like space with Claude, the craft of artisan coding versus mass-produced software, and how memberships and tiny tools fund creative work. Brief stories about rapid builds, Claude-powered workflows, and tech culture in Japan.
46 snips
Apr 9, 2026 • 2h 27min
IM 865: Mythic - Too Dangerous to Release?
Daniel Meissler, security expert and creator of Unsupervised Learning, weighs in on Anthropic’s Mythos and its surprising ability to find long-missed zero-days. He discusses how such capabilities can leak and spread, the tug-of-war between concentrated control and wide release, and what rapid capability jumps mean for security, work, and governance.
37 snips
Apr 2, 2026 • 2h 25min
IM 864: And Artemis Too - Journalism In The Age Of AI
Kate Lee, editor-in-chief of Every (formerly editorial lead at Medium), shares how a newsletter became an AI-first lab building writing tools and products. She talks about integrating LLMs into editorial workflows, training style guides into models, and launching agent‑style apps like Plus One. Short takes cover community camps, adoption challenges, and the shifting roles of writers in an AI-driven newsroom.
34 snips
Mar 26, 2026 • 2h 44min
IM 863: Fire and Ash - Hot Takes on Tech Trials
Marshall Kirkpatrick, tech journalist and builder of the 'What's Up With That' AI browser extension, demos a tool that flags what is genuinely new in articles. Conversation hops between agent risks and supply-chain malware, models behind the extension and on-device compression, the LA bellwether trial over platform harms, and strategies for safer agent credentials and research augmentation.
33 snips
Mar 19, 2026 • 3h 1min
IM 862: Ménage à Claude - AI, Human Agency, and Economic Value
Rumman Chowdhury, AI ethics researcher and founder of Humane Intelligence, discusses moral outsourcing, agency, and why independent oversight matters. She explores redefining intelligence beyond human-centric metrics. She argues for contextual evaluation, public red teaming, and local, privacy-preserving AI alternatives.
29 snips
Mar 12, 2026 • 3h 13min
IM 861: We Have Computer At Home - Coffee and the Rise of the Machines
Guy Kawasaki, former Apple evangelist and author, shares sharp takes on Signal, privacy, and using AI as a writing and preservation tool. He discusses Signal's metadata limits and adoption hurdles. The conversation covers AI ethics, Pentagon ties, digital immortality via personal models, and practical tips for secure communication.
