Humans of AI

Alex Chao
  • 5.0 (2)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

In the race to build AI, we forget that it was made by real people, with real stories. These are their stories. Inspired by the photoblog "Humans of New York", this series is a video podcast showcasing the different people who are either building things in AI or are using it in their daily lives. If you think you would make a good guest or want to sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz

  1. 2H AGO

    The Hard Truth About AI Agents: What We Learned Building in Open Source

    In this episode of Humans of AI, I sit down with my friend Eric Zhu to unpack what are the frameworks and architectures powering modern AI products today. We dive into how AI systems are actually being built today, why early agent frameworks were brittle, and what’s changing as models, tooling, and abstractions improve. Eric shares insights from hands-on experience building AI systems, including lessons around memory, orchestration, open source, and why building has become dramatically faster than even a few years ago. We also talk about the human side of all this—how builders should think about careers in AI, avoiding burnout, and navigating a fast-moving field without getting overwhelmed. Whether you’re an AI engineer, founder, researcher, or just curious about where things are headed, this conversation goes deep into the why behind modern AI systems. ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 – Intro 02:02 - Welcoming Eric Zhu! Experiences building open-source systems from PhD to Industry 11:18 – Early agent systems, frameworks, and brittle abstractions 20:18 – Multi-agent frameworks and why it was hard to go beyond a demo 25:47 – From autonomous agents to workflow orchestration - a trough of disillusionment? 30:00 – Breathing new life into agents with Claude Code 34:35 – "Harness" Engineering and what goes into building agent systems? 39:08 – The importance of data and data representations (i.e knowledge graphs, structured data) 45:57 – Lessons from building in Open Source 56:54 – Office Hours: How to not get left behind in AI Submit your question to the Humans of AI Office Hours and we may cover it in a future episode! https://forms.gle/iztuQCjLyUe8kXYRA 🎙️ Connect with the hosts: Alex Chao 📧 Newsletter: https://alexchao.substack.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/alexchaomander 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander Eric Zhu 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekzhu/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/ekzhuAI moves fast. We keep it human.

    1h 10m
  2. OpenClaw And The Increasing Autonomy of AI Agents

    4D AGO

    OpenClaw And The Increasing Autonomy of AI Agents

    After a long break, the Humans of AI Podcast is back for Season 2! With a new look, new format, new cohosts, and guests, this season will be one you won't want to miss. This week my cohost Tula Masterman and I recap the saga that was OpenClaw — the open-source agentic project that took the internet by storm, spawned an AI social network where agents allegedly conspired to create their own language, and ended with its solo founder joining OpenAI. Plus, we cover new research from Anthropic and OpenAI that reveals what actually happens when humans hand the wheel to agents. We also explore are computer science majors disappearing? Recent data from the University of California seems to suggest so. And we wrap with Humans of AI Office Hours, where we cover user-submitted or curated questions worth digging deeper into. This week's question: "When AGI?" 0:00 Introduction to Humans of AI Podcast Season 21:46 OpenClaw and Agentic Systems2:30 The Rise of OpenClaw5:50 Transition from Chatbots to Agentic Systems7:42 The Importance of Agent Memory10:59 Agentic Execution and Actions20:42 Societal Implications and Agent Uprising27:46 Harness Engineering and Agent Autonomy44:47 Domains of Agent Deployment49:25 OpenAI's Harness Engineering Blog1:08:09 Decline in Computer Science Majors1:18:42 Humans of AI Office Hours: When AGI? Submit your question to the Humans of AI Office Hours and we may cover it in a future episode! https://forms.gle/iztuQCjLyUe8kXYRA 🎙️ Connect with the hosts:Alex Chao 📧 Newsletter: https://alexchao.substack.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/alexchaomander 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander Tula Masterman 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tula-masterman/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/tulamasterman 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tulamasterman AI moves fast. We keep it human. Links to stories: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/15/openclaw-creator-peter-steinberger-joins-openai/ https://www.anthropic.com/research/measuring-agent-autonomy https://openai.com/index/harness-engineering /https://developers.openai.com/blog/skills-shell-tips https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/uc-system-decline-computer-science-enrollment/4032197/ #humansofai #ai #openclaw #agents #harness #claudecode #codex #openai #anthropic #csmajor #college

    1h 25m
  3. OpenClaw And The Increasing Autonomy of AI Agents

    5D AGO

    OpenClaw And The Increasing Autonomy of AI Agents

    After a long break, the Humans of AI Podcast is back for Season 2! With a new look, new format, new cohosts, and guests, this season will be one you won't want to miss. This week my cohost Tula Masterman and I recap the saga that was OpenClaw — the open-source agentic project that took the internet by storm, spawned an AI social network where agents allegedly conspired to create their own language, and ended with its solo founder joining OpenAI. Plus, we cover new research from Anthropic and OpenAI that reveals what actually happens when humans hand the wheel to agents. We also explore are computer science majors disappearing? Recent data from the University of California seems to suggest so. And we wrap with Humans of AI Office Hours, where we cover user-submitted or curated questions worth digging deeper into. This week's question: "When AGI?" Submit your question to the Humans of AI Office Hours and we may cover it in a future episode! https://forms.gle/iztuQCjLyUe8kXYRA 🎙️ Connect with the hosts: Alex Chao 📧 Newsletter: https://alexchao.substack.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/alexchaomander 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander Tula Masterman 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tula-masterman/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/tulamasterman 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tulamasterman AI moves fast. We keep it human. Links to stories: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/15/openclaw-creator-peter-steinberger-joins-openai/ https://www.anthropic.com/research/measuring-agent-autonomy https://openai.com/index/harness-engineering/ https://developers.openai.com/blog/skills-shell-tips https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/uc-system-decline-computer-science-enrollment/4032197/

    1h 25m
  4. Jeremy Toeman: Empowering Creators To Make Compelling Videos with AI

    02/17/2024

    Jeremy Toeman: Empowering Creators To Make Compelling Videos with AI

    Jeremy Toeman is the founder of AugXLabs, an AI video technology startup, helping creators make compelling videos at a fraction of the time & effort. Jeremy's had a storied career in the media industry leading product and innovation at places like WarnerMedia, CBS Interactive and more and is now directing his energies towards building a new venture in the era of generative AI. Check out AugXLabs and make your very first Augie! http://www.augxlabs.com/?via=alex And use promo code AUGIE1MONTH for 1 month free of premium Augie! If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz And follow me on other platforms so you’ll never miss out on my updates! 💌 Sign up for my free AI newsletter Chaos Theory: https://alexchao.substack.com/subscribe 🐦 Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/alexchaomander 📷 And Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alexchaomander/ 🎥 And TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander 👥 Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/

    49 min
  5. Charles Packer: Giving AI Infinite Memory with MemGPT

    11/06/2023

    Charles Packer: Giving AI Infinite Memory with MemGPT

    Charles Packer is a current 5th-year PhD student at UC Berkeley and author of MemGPT an open-source project teaching large language models to manage their own memory for unbounded context! Charles is also a core member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab and Real-Time Intelligent Secure Explainable Systems (RISE) Lab where his work has spanned reinforcement learning and autonomous driving. Check out MemGPT and join their Discord community! https://memgpt.ai/ And Charles's personal website: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cpacker/ If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz And follow me on other platforms so you’ll never miss out on my updates! 💌 Sign up for my free AI newsletter Chaos Theory: https://alexchao.substack.com/subscribe 🐦 Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/alexchaomander 📷 And Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alexchaomander/ 🎥 And TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander 👥 Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/

    31 min
  6. Amanda Bickerstaffi: How AI is Transforming the Classroom

    10/30/2023

    Amanda Bickerstaffi: How AI is Transforming the Classroom

    Amanda Bickerstaff is the co-founder and CEO of AI for Education, an organization aiming to help teachers and schools unlock their full potential through AI by providing workshops, trainings, tools and resources to educators and policymakers. Find Amanda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-bickerstaff-edu/ If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz And follow me on other platforms so you’ll never miss out on my updates! 💌 Sign up for my free AI newsletter Chaos Theory: https://alexchao.substack.com/subscribe 🐦 Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/alexchaomander 📷 And Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alexchaomander/ 🎥 And TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander 👥 Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/

    35 min
  7. Sudip Chakrabarti: The opportunities to build open-source enterprise AI startups

    10/23/2023

    Sudip Chakrabarti: The opportunities to build open-source enterprise AI startups

    Sudip Chakrabarti is an early-stage investor and partner at Decibel where he focuses on enterprise and infrastructure companies. Before becoming an investor, Sudip was an entrepreneur and an engineer, starting his first company when he was at Georgia Tech, and his second while in business school at Wharton. He's been in venture ever-since with a particular focus on enterprise and open-source companies. Find Sudip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudipchakrabarti If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz And follow me on other platforms so you’ll never miss out on my updates! 💌 Sign up for my free AI newsletter Chaos Theory: https://alexchao.substack.com/subscribe 🐦 Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/alexchaomander 📷 And Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alexchaomander/ 🎥 And TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander 👥 Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/

    36 min
  8. Josh Fechter: Creating AI Story Writers for Books and Screenplays

    09/17/2023

    Josh Fechter: Creating AI Story Writers for Books and Screenplays

    Josh Fechter is the CEO and founder of Squibler, a startup seeking to be your AI Copywriter and Storyteller. Josh is a growth hacking expert, a builder of communities and has written several books on software tech writing and copywriting for personal brands. Find Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-fechter/ And check out Squibler: https://www.squibler.io/ If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz And follow me on other platforms so you’ll never miss out on my updates! 💌 Sign up for my free AI newsletter Chaos Theory: https://alexchao.substack.com/subscribe 🐦 Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/alexchaomander 📷 And Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/alexchaomander/ 🎥 And TikTok! https://www.tiktok.com/@alexchaomander 👥 Connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexchao56/

    33 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

In the race to build AI, we forget that it was made by real people, with real stories. These are their stories. Inspired by the photoblog "Humans of New York", this series is a video podcast showcasing the different people who are either building things in AI or are using it in their daily lives. If you think you would make a good guest or want to sponsor the podcast, send me a note at alex@humansofai.xyz

Information

  • Creator
    Alex Chao
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Alex Chao
  • Show Website
    Humans of AI