Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks

Larry Weeks
  • 5.0 (17)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Monthly

A podcast about the challenges of being human (and running things). Host Larry Weeks interviews thought leaders across psychology, business, science, and culture to explore resilience, emotions, mental health, and practical ways to stay grounded through change while building purpose and real happiness.

  1. 3d ago

    Beyond AI Doom: Zack Korman on the Case for Cautious Acceleration

    Is AI doom a prophecy or a set of choices we can make right now? What happens if the people building AI start believing it has a soul? And if AI is risky, why might the doomers be wrong about how to respond? In this episode, Zack Korman explains why AI doom isn't inevitable and why the real risks have less to do with machines plotting against us and more to do with what access we give them and whether anyone is watching. Zack is the co-founder of Embroidery.io, a cybersecurity company that uses AI to monitor AI agents. He was previously CTO of the cybersecurity company Pistachio. Based in Norway, Zack has become an outspoken voice in the AI safety debate, including media appearances in The Atlantic, Time magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. In this conversation, we explore how AI agents actually work, what really happened in the Hugging Face incident, the divide between doomers and accelerationists, why believing AI is alive could make it harder to shut down, why Zack treats AI models as extraordinarily valuable malware, how to regulate the way AI is deployed rather than just the labs that build it, how to protect yourself in the age of agents, and how becoming a father changed the way he thinks about the future. One idea kept resurfacing: whether AI goes well or badly may depend less on what the machines want and more on what we build, what we connect them to, and whether anyone is watching Some highlights from the episode: Between extraordinary promise and existential fear Doomers, accelerationists, and centrists: The competing philosophies of AI Can we move fast without breaking things? The asymmetry of AI risks and rewards How language models become agents that can take real-world actions Why even a well-aligned AI model can't be perfectly safe The problem of persistence  Kill switches, sandbox escapes, and human oversight AI consciousness, and the effects of anthropomorphism What effective AI regulation might actually look like Interpretability: Understanding a model's choices What AI doomers get right Practical advice for agentic AI risks Potential upsides of AI A new father's perspective on AI risk Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com

  2. Sep 30

    How Your Brain Builds Reality and Why It Gets Stuck: Jakob Hohwy on the Predictive Mind

    Your brain isn't simply recording reality. It's constantly predicting it. Why can someone know they are loved and still feel unlovable? Why can we intellectually know something is safe and still be terrified of it? Why can resisting pain sometimes make it worse? And why are some beliefs so difficult to change, even when the evidence seems overwhelming? Jakob Hohwy, one of the leading thinkers on predictive processing, explains how the brain builds a model of the world, and what happens when that model gets stuck. Professor Hohwy is a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and the Director of the interdisciplinary Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies. Jakob's The Predictive Mind helped establish the predictive processing paradigm. His 2026 book, The Self-Evidencing Agent: Mind, Existence, and Predictive Processing, tells a fundamental story about how everyday experience arises as people seek out evidence for their internal model of the world and themselves. In this conversation, we explore how the brain constructs our experience of reality, why old beliefs can survive contradictory evidence, and what predictive processing might tell us about suffering, anxiety, phobias, meditation, pain, therapy, AI, gratitude, and how to live in a world that keeps changing. One idea kept resurfacing: maybe the goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty. Maybe it's to get better at updating our models when reality surprises us. Some highlights from the episode: 03:00 Introduction into predictive processing  05:30 The brain as a prediction machine vs recorder 10:00 What an expected text message can teach us about prediction error 13:00 Priors, evidence, and why some beliefs carry more weight than others 20:00 How unexpected failure can become a powerful learning signal 26:00 Why someone can be loved and still feel unlovable 32:00 Meditation, attention, and learning not to immediately react 35:00 Self-evidencing and how we test our models of the world 49:00 How the predictive brain compares with LLMs and AI 52:00 How we can change our experience of physical pain 1:02:00 Prediction errors and emotional suffering 1:10:00 Why holding beliefs too tightly can make us suffer 1:16:00 Why phobias can be rational  1:20:00 How avoidance keeps fear alive 1:27:00 The surprising predictive-processing case for gratitude 1:31:00 Attention is an amplifier of beliefs 1:35:00 Why getting new information itself feels like a reward Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com

  3. Sep 4

    C. Thi Nguyen: Gamification, Metrics, and the Score Trap

    Scores can be useful, but they can also quietly take over—until we start serving the metric instead of the reason we played the game in the first place. Sometimes we don't choose the game. At work, for example, the scoring system just comes with the role. So how do we keep a score useful without letting it hijack our behavior? And for the games we do choose to play, how do we make sure we don't lose the sense of play that made them worth doing? C. Thi Nguyen is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah specializing in the philosophy of games, technology, and value. He was named to Vox's 2024 Future Perfect 50 list of thinkers working to make the world better. His first book, Games: Agency as Art, won the American Philosophical Association's Book Prize, and his newest book is The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. Some highlights from the episode: 01:00 How metrics can replace the values they were meant to serve 04:00 Work OKRs and the problem of measuring at scale 06:00 Why organizations rely on numbers, even when the numbers are imperfect 11:00 How accountability changes what we measure 16:00 Goals, scoring systems, and when the numbers start taking over 17:00 Can you gamify your work without becoming trapped by a score 18:00 Goals and a purpose 20:00 Striving play 22:00 Games and "unnecessary obstacles"  25:00 When scoring and competition kill the joy of an activity 34:00 Why "just enjoy the process" can actually be bad advice 38:00 What to do if a goal that once motivated you stops working 42:00 Retirement and new games to play 44:00 Process beauty: why the doing can matter more  52:00 Gamifying life  56:00 AI and getting an outcome while skipping the normal effort in getting that outcome  Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com

  4. Aug 3

    A Younger Brain: Dr. Tommy Wood on Dementia, Aging, and Staying Sharp

    Your brain is not necessarily doomed to significant cognitive decline with age. But it does need a reason to keep adapting. That is the premise behind The Stimulated Mind, and it is why this conversation with neuroscientist Dr. Tommy Wood may change how you think about aging, retirement, frustration, and the things you normally avoid because they feel difficult. Tommy is an associate professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Washington. He studied biochemistry at Cambridge, earned his medical degree from Oxford and his PhD from Oslo. He also works with Formula 1 drivers as head scientist for motorsport at Hintsa Performance and is the author of The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age. Your brain needs meaningful challenge. Adults tend to hate feeling like beginners. We avoid unfamiliar technology, difficult skills, and situations where we might look incompetent. But Tommy explains why that frustration may be evidence that the brain is doing exactly what it needs to do. Some highlights from the episode: 06:00 The counterclockwise study 08:00 Beliefs about aging 11:00 Age limits and cognitive ability 14:00 Cognitive baseline testing 16:00 Challenge and brain adaptation 19:00 Why frustration can be beneficial 21:00 Reading versus listening 23:00 Hearing and vision loss 26:00 Alzheimer's versus dementia 30:00 The best exercise for the brain 34:00 Overstimulation versus real stimulation 37:00 Retirement and cognitive decline 39:00 Food and brain health 41:00 Dementia biomarker testing 44:00 Improving cognition after decline 46:00 Advice for caregivers 48:00 Do crossword puzzles and brain games work? Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com

  5. Jul 9

    How to Break the Stress Cycle with Andy Bernstein

    Something happens. The tire goes flat, the layoff comes, test results come back. And then a sentence starts running in the back of your head. That shouldn't have happened. I should weigh less. They shouldn't have fired me. You barely register it. It plays like a radio in another room, and it produces a feeling, and the feeling produces a behavior, and the behavior produces the day you are having. The stress paradox is that the thought causing you the most pain is also the one that feels most obviously true. Of course they shouldn't have fired me. The belief feels like clear sight rather than distortion, and it feels useful, like it is the thing that will finally motivate change. It almost never is.  Treating stress as a condition to be managed rather than a belief or thought to be examined leaves it running. My guest is Andy Bernstein. Andy is the creator of Active Insight and the founder of the Resilience Academy. He is the author of Breaking the Stress Cycle, and he has taught at Wharton Executive Education since 2007, where his sessions have been audience favorites for thousands of leaders. His corporate clients include Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson, Google, Coca-Cola, and Genentech.  Andy built a process for dealing with stress that is seven steps, done on paper. You do not lie on a couch. You do not say a word. In this conversation, he walks through all seven steps live, twice. Challenging the way other people think is something we all do constantly. Challenging your own thinking is something we rarely do.  Some highlights from the episode: 03:32 Losing his father at 14 and his sister at 16  06:00 Byron Katie, The Work, and a job he never meant to leave  08:26 Active Insight  11:07 Field-testing  14:51 Where our idea of stress came from  19:25 Bears, war zones, and the adaptive exception  24:41 "Should" as the argument with reality  29:33 The seven steps, walked through live  30:43 What is negation? 36:50 Running the process on "they shouldn't have fired me"  39:19 The showdown with yourself  43:37 Time doesn't heal wounds. Insight does.  44:34 The Grant Study and not pushing love away  47:00 Doing it in your head, and when that isn't enough  50:47 Won't I become a doormat?  51:09 Flow, not stress  53:49 The psychology of subtraction Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com/podcasts

  6. May 26

    Anxiety Isn't the Obstacle: Morita Therapy Explained with Gregg Krech

    You know what you should do. You're just not doing it. The gym bag is by the door. The draft is open on your screen. The email's been sitting there for three days. And somewhere underneath all of it is the same quiet assumption running the show: that you have to feel like it first. That motivation comes before action.  What if that's backwards? That's the premise behind Morita therapy, and it's the reason this conversation with Gregg Krech might rearrange how you think about getting things done. Gregg is the Executive Director of the ToDo Institute, a Naikan education and retreat center in Vermont.. He is also the author of several books, including: "Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection," "A Natural Approach to Mental Wellness," "The Art of Taking Action," and "Question Your Life."   For nearly thirty years Gregg has been teaching an approach called Morita therapy developed a century ago by a Japanese psychiatrist to treat severe anxiety, and it offers a genuinely different way of dealing with the feelings that stop us. Here's the core of it. When we have a difficult feeling, like anxiety, depression, anger, or the urge to quit, we think we have two options: express it or suppress it. Morita therapy offers a third. Acceptance.  You coexist with the feeling, and you take action anyway.  In this conversation we get into how you actually build that skill, not as a concept, but as something you train like free throws or piano. We cover why motivation is optional, what the maxim "lead with the body" means, why the smartest people often get the most stuck, and how to use your attention to relieve suffering in real time. We talk about recovering from real setbacks like job loss and divorce, and end on a surprisingly freeing idea about indecision: why what you do after you decide matters far more than the decision itself. Some highlights from the episode: 02:36 Origins of Morita Therapy 06:39 The third options  10:48 Thoughts vs actions  13:31 Purpose and feelings 17:24 Practice restraint and action 21:37 Directors vs actors  24:20 Willpower  27:27 Motivation and optionality 29:09 Lead with your body 30:38 Setbacks 33:29 Attention 35:37 Meditation  41:00 Breath practice 45:31 Resistance 48:24 Exercises over maxims 55:22 Indecision and commitment Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com/podcasts/

  7. May 7

    The AI Fallacy: Dr. Jerry Kane on Education, Work, and What We're Getting Wrong

    The AI fallacy is thinking the transformation is only in the tool. AI is already transforming education and work; not just because of what it can do, but because of what people believe it can do. Students, workers, managers, universities, and companies are all changing their behavior around AI, sometimes rationally, sometimes badly, and often before they even fully understand it. The AI paradox is that it is both a technology and a social event. It is a technology because it is something we install, manage, govern, and use. But it is also a social event because it functions as a moment in history, one that is already altering how people learn, work, teach, hire, manage, and make decisions. Treating AI only as technology leads to the fallacy: the mistaken belief that because a challenge is technical, the solution must also be purely technical. My guest is Professor Gerald C. "Jerry" Kane. Prof. Kane is the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, he has also served as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School, a Guest Editor at MIT Sloan Management Review, and a Senior Editor at MIS Quarterly. Jerry's research explores the role of digital technologies in business strategy, organizational culture, and talent development, with a particular focus on how people and organizations respond to digital disruption. He is also the author of two books on that topic: The Technology Fallacy and The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization Through Uncertain Times. I had Jerry on the podcast before. This time, I wanted to talk to him because he sits in both worlds: he studies how companies adapt to digital transformation, and he is also a professor watching AI hit higher education in real time, not as a theory, but in his classroom, with his students, right now. Treating AI as a software update rather than a cultural shift results in 'bolted-on' systems that people neither trust nor understand. Some highlights from the episode. 02:13 Meet Professor Jerry Kane 07:12 How fast AI hit campus 13:22 The university policy divide 14:19 Workplace tools and incentives 17:36 Young minds and the outsourcing of thinking 20:20 Teach the basics first, then add AI 24:22 Degrees vs. lifelong upskilling 29:34 Curation as the new core skill 31:50 AI pushback from artists and creators 32:47 Ethical use over refusal 33:18 What's actually happening inside companies 34:13 Building a coalition of the willing 36:13 Shadow AI and the risks of unsanctioned use 38:25 Efficiency vs. transformation 40:44 Layoffs and AI washing 42:12 Middle managers and org structure 43:27 Adoption steps and safety 47:29 Minimal viable governance 55:35 Jobs anxiety vs. reality 58:30 Bullish long-term, uncertain short-term 1:00:49 Chatbots and attention traps Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com/podcasts

  8. Apr 29

    Happy or Hidden: Sonja Lyubomirsky on the Science of Connection and Feeling Loved

    Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is one of the world's leading researchers on happiness, human flourishing, and what actually helps people feel connected. A Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside, she is the bestselling author of The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness, published in 39 countries. Her latest book, written with Harry Reis, is How to Feel Loved. Sonja's work has shaped the modern science of happiness and earned major honors, including recognition as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Basel, and several leading awards in personality and positive psychology. She also writes a popular newsletter on the science of happiness, and her research has been featured widely in media, documentaries, podcasts, and public conversations around the world. On the show, we cover: Self-help culture and happiness The happiness trap: doing what we think will make us happy that can backfire The counterfactual gratitude practice The "masking effect": seeking admiration and its impact on connection The vulnerability paradox Being loved vs. feeling loved Curiosity as a way of making other people feel seen Challenging the Five Love Languages Why small daily moments of connection matter so much On AI: the rise of AI companions and simulated connection The multiplicity mindset: why people are more than one trait or action For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com

See All (101)

5
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

A podcast about the challenges of being human (and running things). Host Larry Weeks interviews thought leaders across psychology, business, science, and culture to explore resilience, emotions, mental health, and practical ways to stay grounded through change while building purpose and real happiness.

Information

You Might Also Like