AI and I Dan Shipper

Learn how the smartest people in the world are using AI to think, create, and relate. Each week I interview founders, filmmakers, writers, investors, and others about how they use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney in their work and in their lives. We screen-share through their historical chats and then experiment with AI live on the show. Join us to discover how AI is changing how we think about our world—and ourselves. 

For more essays, interviews, and experiments at the forefront of AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought?sort=newest

The NYT’s Kevin Roose has 18 new friends—none of whom are human.

His new friends are AI personas that he made with Noma, Kindroid, and other AI companion apps. There’s fitness guru Jared, therapist Peter, trial lawyer Anna, and over a dozen more.

Kevin talked to them every day for a month, sharing his feelings, asking for parenting advice, and even using them for “fit” checks.

This isn’t the first time Kevin has had an…unusual interaction with an AI persona. A year ago, he was the target of Bing’s chatbot Sydney’s unhinged romantic affections.

Kevin has gone deeper into the world of AI companions than anyone I know. He is a tech columnist at the New York Times, cohost of the Hard Fork podcast, and the author of three books. In this episode, I sat down with Kevin to learn more about his interactions with AI. We dive into:


Why AI companions aren’t just for lonely people or shy teenagers
Why AI personas are better friends than ChatGPT
How AI companions can be used to safely explore different social contexts
The risk of young people relying on AI for friendship
The icks of AI dating and intimacy
How to use AI to articulate what you value in your relationships

This is a must-watch for anyone curious about how AI is changing the way we form relationships.

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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:


Kevin Roose
Hardfork, the podcast that Kevin cohosts
Kevin’s latest book about being human in a world designed for machines
Kevin’s piece in the New York Times about his experience making AI friends
Two of the apps that Kevin used to create AI companions: Kindroid and Nomi
Dan’s piece that explains why AI writing will feel real through psychologist D.W. Winnicott’s theory
Every’s piece that explores AI companion app Replika

Nick Dobos, maker of the #1 programming GPT, on prompt-gramming with AI

Nick Dobos showed me how to ship a website with two words and a single click. 

He’s the creator of Grimoire, the #1 custom GPT for programming that has been used for over 1 million chats. 

All he gave Grimoire was two words: “coffee website.” Just a minute later, Grimoire built the website and pushed it live to the internet. It was wild.

Grimoire can do a lot more than create websites—it’s a coding assistant with 75+ built-in hotkey commands and sample projects, a guide to learning how to code from scratch, and a tool for programmers to find answers to their questions in real-time.

Before he created Grimoire, Nick was an iOS developer at Twitter. When ChatGPT came out, Nick started experimenting with it—and ended up building Grimoire. Today, he’s at the leading edge of experimenting and building with AI. 

I sat down with Nick to explore how people are using Grimoire and what it tells us about the age of programming by prompting. We dive into:


How AI is massively lowering the barriers to code


Why it’s important to solve the “blank canvas problem” that people experience while creating with AI


How AI tools can streamline your creative process


Why Grimoire has an edge over ordinary ChatGPT


The best ways to use Grimoire to code smarter and faster



This is a must-watch for coders, creative people, and anyone curious about how AI is changing the way we interact with computers.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! 

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:


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Timestamps:


Introduction: 00:00:31


How Nick built Grimoire, the top-ranked GPT for programming: 00:05:20


Ship a website with two words and a single click: 00:10:25


How Grimoire is solving the “blank canvas problem” in AI creation: 00:14:57


The coding curriculum that can take you from zero to full programmer: 00:16:30


Why Grimoire has an edge over ordinary ChatGPT: 00:23:29


Nick’s thoughts on building the system prompt for a GPT: 00:34:10


The utility of AI as a new layer on top of existing apps: 00:40:04


How Nick uses a custom GPT to unpack his emotions: 00:43:11


How to use AI to break down tasks—from programming to daily to-do lists: 00:50:35



Links to resources mentioned in the episode:


Nick Dobos: @NickADobos


Grimoire: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-n7Rs0IK86-grimoire 


Nick’s website for his experiments with AI: https://mindgoblinstudios.com/ 


AI-first code editor Cursor: https://cursor.sh/ 


Open Interpreter: https://www.openinterpreter.com/ 


Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book: How Emotions Are Made


Demo Hume, the empathetic AI voice: https://demo.hume.ai/ 

This AI can read emotions better than you can.

It was created by Alan Cowen, the cofounder and CEO of Hume, an AI research lab developing models that can read your face and your voice with uncanny accuracy. Before starting Hume, Alan helped set up Google’s research into affective computing and has a Ph.D. in computational psychology from Berkely.

Hume’s ultimate goal is to build AI models that can optimize for human well-being, and in this episode I sat down with Alan to understand how that might be possible. 

We get into:


What an emotion actually is


Why traditional psychological theories of emotion are inadequate


How Hume is able to model human emotions


How Hume's API enables developers to build empathetic voice interfaces


Applications of the model in customer service, gaming, and therapy


Why Hume is designed to optimize for human well-being instead of engagement


The ethical concerns around creating an AI that can interpret human emotions


The future of psychology as a science 



This is a must-watch for anyone interested in the science of emotion and the future of human-AI interactions.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! 

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:


Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe 


Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper 



Timestamps:


Dan tells Hume’s empathetic AI model a secret: 00:00:00


Introduction: 00:01:13


What traditional psychology tells us about emotions: 00:10:17


Alan’s radical approach to studying human emotion: 00:13:46 


Methods that Hume’s AI model uses to understand emotion: 00:16:46 


How the model accounts for individual differences: 00:21:08


Dan’s pet theory on why it’s been hard to make progress in psychology: 00:27:19


The ways in which Alan thinks Hume can be used: 00:38:12


How Alan is thinking about the API v. consumer product question: 00:41:22


Ethical concerns around developing AI that can interpret human emotion: 00:44:42



Links to resources mentioned in the episode:


Alan Cowen: @AlanCowen
Hume: @hume_AI; hume.ai
If you want to demo Hume: demo.hume.ai
The nonprofit associated with Hume: Hume Initiative
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book: How Emotions Are Made
The TV series based on Paul Ekman’s theory of emotion: Lie to Me

Learn how to use philosophy to run your business more effectively.

Reid Hoffman thinks a masters in philosophy will help you run your business better than an MBA.

Reid is a founder, investor, podcaster, and author. But before he did any of these things, he studied philosophy—and it changed the way he thinks.

Studying philosophy trains you to think deeply about truth, human nature, and the meaning of life. It helps you see the big picture and reason through complex problems—invaluable skills for founders grappling with existential questions about their business.

I usually bring guests onto my podcast to discuss the actionable ways in which people have incorporated ChatGPT into their lives. But this episode is different. 

I sat down with Reid to tackle a deeper question: How is AI changing what it means to be human? 

It was honestly one of the most meaningful shows I’ve recorded yet. We dive into:


How philosophy prepares you to be a better founder
The importance of interdisciplinary thinking
Essentialism v. nominalism in the context of AI
How language models are evolving to be more “essentialist”
The co-evolution of humans and technology

Reid also shares actionable uses of ChatGPT for people who want to think more clearly, like:


Input your argument and ask ChatGPT for alternative perspectives
Generate custom explanations of complex ideas
Leverage ChatGPT as an on-demand research assistant

This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about some of the bigger questions prompted by the rapid development of AI.

Thanks again to our sponsor CommandBar, the first AI user assistance platform, for helping make this video possible. https://www.commandbar.com/copilot/

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! 

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:


Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe 
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper 

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman

The podcasts that Reid hosts: Possible (possible.fm) and Masters of Scale (https://mastersofscale.com/)

Reid’s book: Impromptu

The book Reid recommends if you want to be more philosophically inclined: Gödel, Escher, Bach

Reid’s article in the Atlantic: "Technology Makes Us More Human"

The book about why psychology literature is wrong: The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich

The book about how culture is driving human evolution: The Secrets of Our Success by Joseph Henrich

Seth-Stephens Davidowitz wrote a book in 30 days—and he did it with ChatGPT.

Seth is a data scientist, economist, and author who challenged himself to write a book—Who Makes the NBA?—in less than 1 month after realizing how fast he could work by using ChatGPT plugin Advanced Data Analysis.

But along the way he discovered something else: Writing with AI wasn’t just faster, it was also way more fun.

Seth outsourced the boring parts of data analysis—like cleaning data, merging files, and looking up code snippets—to AI. This left him to focus on what he loves: thinking up questions to ask the dataset.

In a world where AI can answer any question humans know the answer to, asking the right questions is becoming increasingly important—a skill Seth isn’t just really good at, but also finds joy in.

In this episode, Seth walks me through how he used AI to analyze data and write a book in 30 days. We get into:


How to create and edit complex charts with AI in seconds
Using ChatGPT to brainstorm creative ideas
How AI is redefining who can be an artist
Why ChatGPT is an excellent tool to get a quick ballpark estimate
Developing a sixth sense about when ChatGPT is wrong
The power of AI instantly answering hard questions that would normally take months of research

We also use ChatGPT to analyze a dataset of Olympic athletes live on the show—in pursuit of finding out which sport I’m best suited for!

This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about data science and how AI is transforming the future of creativity (or who is just a fan of the NBA).

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:


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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: https://twitter.com/SethS_D http://sethsd.com

Seth’s books: Who Makes the NBA? , Everybody Lies and Don’t Trust Your Gut