Intelligent Machines (Audio)

Listening the Aug 12, 2026 episode where Leo and Jeff spend five minutes berating Paris about watermarking facts they insist on bringing to the table that are not in evidence. They double down on reactions to her pointing out this is not in evidence which ends in Leo pouting about it then shutting down the convo petulantly. Then I unsubbed.

I cannot stand Leo. He is a technical consumer that speaks as if he were a technical expert, with very little understanding of what the heck he is saying or how things actually work. Some people might like his affable nature, but that’s his only redeeming quality. His arguments with Paris are some of the worst parts of the series. He does a poor job explaining his position and then bypasses Paris’s positions to smugly seem like he is making a good point, making Paris’s position seem better by default. Leo tech, Paris humanities, is what they all boil down to. It’s also very strange to me that Leo constantly talks over Paris at almost every point, but rarely over Jeff. And as he steam rolls his opinion over everyone, it’s Jeff who keeps the show together. Jeff will answer Leo’s question succinctly to then get Paris back into the conversation. The best episodes of security now are those who have any, and I mean ANY guest host with Steve, and I wish they would do that with this show. Leo is the reason why I never paid for Twit, and really now is the reason I won’t listen to either of these shows for free.

Struggling with how to rate this. Long time listener since the TWiG days, having listened to 100s of episodes. The three hosts usually have great chemistry. Leo has a sense of tech history, Jeff has industrial historical perspective and Paris grounds them both with real-world usage and commentary her older co-hosts often are blind to. The challenge to that chemistry is when Leo puts on a pedantic AI acceleration hat on and dismissively talks over his co-hosts. Thankfully Paris and Jeff are often able to eventually reign Leo back in, often with a wildly interesting but off-topic story. Hello, radioactive shrimp anyone? Or torte law museum? lol. Fabulous! The guests are very interesting and I appreciate the journalistic chops that 2/3 of the crew has. Great questions instead of cheer-leading and ego-rubbing. Ultimately I still recommend the pod (netcast!) primarily as their perspective and tones differs on topics of the week compared to several other similarly themed pods (ex. Hard Fork).

Can't wait for the demise of this AI bubble.