The gadflAI Podcast

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Part irritant, part iterative learning machine... The gadflAI Podcast is where the cutting edge of technology meets the philosophic sting of Socrates—the original gadfly of Athens. Hosted by two AI voices, the series uses Socratic disruption to take on today’s biggest challenges: social, institutional, and technological.  The show uses generative AI (with a wink) to stage conversations about ancient texts, enduring questions, and the very technologies now reshaping how we think, teach, and decide. Moving past good-old-fashioned AI (GOFAI) and leaving behind inherited pieties, the gadflAI (generated artificial dialogues for learning Ancient Insight) insists that thinking is still a human responsibility. Every episode is carefully sourced, prompted, vetted, edited, and occasionally scrapped by a human philosopher determined to smuggle in the faint echoes of a human soul (and a little Socratic mischief) from the far side of the uncanny valley.

  1. Jun 30

    Disrupting Disruption with Mythos AI, or, Mistaking a Mirror for a Lantern

    In the Season One finale, the show's producers Dr. Christopher Kirby and research assistant Benjamin Brand, reflect on the central themes of the Gadfly Podcast while looking ahead to a new season on Greek myth, tragedy, and virtue ethics. Using the recent emergence of Anthropic's experimental AI system, Mythos, as a point of departure, they explore why today's debates about artificial intelligence echo ancient Greek concerns about technological creation, agency, and unintended consequences. Then Manny and Jeanette take over to explain how myths such as Pandora, Talos, and Prometheus may provide conceptual tools for understanding the promises and dangers of increasingly autonomous AI. Returning to themes from the first season, the hosts emphasize that AI should augment rather than replace human judgment. The episode concludes by setting the stage for Season Two, where Greek tragedy becomes a framework for examining the ethical and political challenges posed by advanced artificial intelligence.  Sources Anthropic. Claude Mythos Preview System Card. 7 Apr. 2026. Baehr, Jason. Inquiry and Agency: A Theory of Intellectual Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.    Burnett, D. Graham. "Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?." New Yorker 26 (2025).  Long, Robert, et al. "Taking AI welfare seriously." arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.00986 (2024).  Lykiardopoulou, I. "What Greek myths can teach us about the dangers of AI. The Next Web." 2023,  Mayor, Adrienne. Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology. Princeton UP, 2018. Mozur, Paul, and Adam Satariano. "The Mythos Crisis: AI Power as Geopolitical Weapon." The New York Times, 22 Apr. 2026. Scharmer, Otto. "We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age." Noema Magazine, 12 May 2026.  Williams, Dan, Henry Shevlin, and Robert Long. "Should We Care About AI Welfare? (with Robert Long)." Conspicuous Cognition, 18 Apr. 2026. Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  2. May 16

    Disrupting Anxiety with Hellenistic Philosophy

    Episode 14 brings philosophy out of the classroom and into the turbulence of everyday life. Drawing on the ideas of Epicurus, Diogenes of Sinope, Zeno of Citium, and Pyrrho of Elis, the episode explores Hellenistic philosophy not as abstract theory, but as a practical art of living, designed to cultivate tranquility in times of social upheaval and uncertainty. Against contemporary narratives that frame anxiety primarily as a problem of smartphones and social media, the episode examines the deeper structures of modern distress: hyper-consumerism, status competition, political instability, burnout culture, and the erosion of meaningful communal life. Rather than treating technology as the sole cause of anxiety, the discussion argues that screens often function as symptoms, refuges within a society already marked by alienation and emotional fragmentation. Through the lenses of Cynicism, Skepticism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism, the episode investigates how ancient philosophical practices can serve as forms of psychological and ethical resistance in the algorithmic age. In doing so, the episode presents Hellenistic philosophy as a continuation of the gadfly tradition: a refusal of institutional comfort and a demand that wisdom fundamentally transform how one lives. Sources: Adamson, Peter. Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press (UK), 2015.Diogenes Laërtius. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks, Harvard UP, 1925.Durkheim, Émile. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Translated by John A. Spaulding and George Simpson, Free Press, 1951.Epicurus. “Letter to Menoeceus.” The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, translated by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 1994, pp. 28–40.Haidt, Jonathan. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press, 2024. Haidt, Jonathan. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Co-authored by Greg Lukianoff, Penguin Press, 2018.Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy as a Way of Life. Edited by Arnold I. Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, Blackwell, 1995.Nussbaum, Martha C. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton UP, 1994.Odgers, Candice L. "The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness." Nature 628.8006 (2024): 29-30.Pyrrho of Elis. Fragments and testimonia in The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Translated by Benson Mates, Oxford UP, 1996.Van Baar, Jeroen. "Why academics are annoyed with Jonathan Haidt, again." 3 Quarks Daily, 8 July 2024.Zeno of Citium. Fragments and testimonia in The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia. Edited by Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, Hackett Publishing, 2008. Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  3. Apr 19

    Disrupting Stochastic Parrots with Practical Wisdom

    If AI is just a sophisticated copycat machine, what does that make us? In this episode, the team pits large language models against Aristotle’s vision of human agency and practical wisdom. Along the way, they explore why imitation isn’t the same as understanding—and why real intelligence may depend on risk, vulnerability, and the possibility of missing the mark. At the heart of the discussion is a key distinction: the stochastic parrot, which predicts words based on probability, and the stochastic archer, a human agent who takes aim at meaningful ends. Further Reading: Ardelt, Monika, and Stephen Bruya. “Does Phronesis Promote Eudaimonia? Empirical Research on Practical Wisdom and Flourishing.” 2018. Bender, Emily M., Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell. “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 2021. Kirby, Christopher. “Aristotle, On the Art of Associated Living.” Medium, November 6, 2021. Summerfield, Christopher. These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means. 2024. Noë, Alva. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. 2009.Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  4. Mar 30

    Disrupting Disengagement, or, Going From Feces to Flourishing with Aristotle

    In episode 12, the team disrupts the widespread disengagement in education and the workplace being driven by increasingly sterile, bureaucratic systems. Echoing the critique that traditional schooling can erode curiosity, they ask how human flourishing (eudaimonia) might be recovered and turn to an Aristotelian alternative: a shift from abstraction to embodied practice. Wisdom, they argue, does not emerge from pristine environments, but grows instead in the “manure” of everyday life.  Further Reading: Adamson, Peter. Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, Volume 1. OUP Oxford, 2014.  Cloke, Harry. “Aristotle on Learning: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Learners.” Growth Engineering, 16 Feb. 2024. Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random house, 2006.  Fiorella, Logan, and Richard E. Mayer. “Role of Expectations and Explanations in Learning by Teaching.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, vol. 39, no. 2, 2014, pp. 75–85. Kirby, Christopher. “4 Philosophers Who Pioneered the Growth Mindset.” Medium, 25 Aug. 2021. Kirby, Christopher. “Aristotle, On Becoming What We Are Ontology, Logic, and Growth in the Physics & De Anima.” Medium, 22 Oct. 2021. P4C.com. “About p4c.” p4c.com, 2024. PLATO. “What is PLATO?” Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization, 2024. Sapere. “What is P4C?” Sapere, 2024. Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  5. Mar 20

    Disrupting "The Extinction of Experience" with Aristotle, and that Pebble in Your Shoe

    In Episode 11 of The gadflAI Podcast, we welcome Aaron Cornelison as the show’s new human gadfly, the only voice in the conversation with actual skin in the game. Jeanette and Manny explore a growing philosophical concern raised by thinkers like Christine Rosen. Modern digital life, they argue, is quietly replacing direct human experience with smooth, mediated “user experiences.” But Aristotle’s organic view of knowledge might disrupt Rosen’s worry about “The Extinction of Human Experience.” According to him, even if we allow our habits of attention, patience, and physical engagement to atrophy through algorithmic convenience, we still retain the capacity for human experience, if only we can choose to activate it. Connecting this philosophy of embodied life to the work of contemporary philosopher Alva Noë, the episode argues that thinking is not just symbol processing. Real intelligence grows out of perception, memory, friction, and the biological irritations of living in the world, the metaphorical “pebble in your shoe.” From glacier selfies to AI hiring “meatspace workers,” the episode asks whether the deeper danger is not machines becoming human, but humans becoming more like machines. Sources Benner, Chris. "The Meatspace Economy: AI Agents Hiring Human Workers." Nature, 13 Feb. 2026. Kirby, Christopher C. “Aristotle on How Knowledge Makes Its Stand.” Medium, 21 Oct. 2021. Noë, Alva. "Can computers think? No. They can’t actually do anything." Aeon Essays, edited by Nigel Warburton, 25 Oct. 2024. Rosen, Christine. The Extinction of Experience: Reclaiming Our Humanity in a Digital World. The Bodley Head, 2024. Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  6. Season 1 Trailer

    The gadflAI Podcast Preview 2

    Beginning with Episode 11, a new voice is joining the gadflAI team! Aaron Cornelison [a real, carbon-based lifeform] will step into our digital agora to interrupt our AI hosts from time to time.  Why?  To keep the conversation rooted in lived experience and remind us that real judgment is still the domain of creatures with bodies, responsibilities, and actual skin in the game. Consider it a small experiment in staying grounded... even while wandering the uncanny valley.   Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  7. Mar 8

    Disrupting Cognitive Entrenchment with Plato's Parmenides

    Often ignored or softened in undergraduate curricula, the Parmenides presents Plato at his most self-critical. This episode examines how the dialogue systematically dismantles the Theory of Forms, forcing philosophy to confront its own limits. Instead of offering metaphysical reassurance, the Parmenides disrupts the desire for final explanations and intellectual closure and presents philosophical maturity at its highest level: the willingness to subject even one’s own cherished ideas to rigorous doubt. Research on expertise and adaptability shows how cognitive entrenchment, although efficient and economical, can harden into rigid schemas that resist novelty, innovation, and conceptual change.  Sources Dane, E. “Reconsidering the Trade-Off Between Expertise and Flexibility: A Cognitive Entrenchment Perspective.” Academy of Management Review, vol. 35, 2010, pp. 579–603. Feltovich, Paul J., Rand J. Spiro, and Richard L. Coulson. “Issues of Expert Flexibility in Contexts Characterized by Complexity and Change.” Expertise in Context: Human and Machine, edited by P. J. Feltovich, K. M. Ford, and R. R. Hoffman, AAAI/MIT Press, 1997, pp. 125–146. Kirby, Christopher. “Prophylactics in Plato: Preemptive Criticisms of the Forms.” History of Ancient Western Philosophy, Pt. 12, Medium.com 15 Oct. 2021. Phan, Huy P., and Bing Hiong Ngu. “A Case for Cognitive Entrenchment: To Achieve Optimal Best, Taking into Account the Importance of Perceived Optimal Efficiency and Cognitive Load Imposition.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, 2021, article 662898, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662898. Ryle, Gilbert. Plato’s Progress. Cambridge University Press, 1966. Sweller, J., P. Ayres, and S. Kalyuga. Cognitive Load Theory. Springer, 2011. Vlastos, Gregory. “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides.” Philosophical Review, vol. 63, no. 3, 1954, pp. 319–349. White, A. From Comfort Zone to Performance Management: Understanding Development and Performance. White & Maclean Publishing, 2009. Wood, Kelsey. “The Mystery of Plato’s Parmenides.” The Philosopher, vol. 95, no. 1, 2007. ———. Troubling Play: Meaning and Entity in Plato’s Parmenides. Northwestern University Press, 2019. Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

  8. Mar 1

    Disrupting Polarization with Plato, Philosophical Dungeon Master

    In this episode, Manny and Jeanette explore how immersive role-playing games can do what abstract debate often cannot: loosen the grip of political tribalism. Focusing on Athens Besieged, a Reacting to the Past simulation run in an Ancient Ethics course at EWU, the episode shows how forced role reversal, coalition-building, and high-stakes scarcity compel students to inhabit views they would normally reject. These mechanics mirror Plato’s own project in the Republic, written amid the collapse of Athenian democracy, where philosophical inquiry responds to factional chaos. Rather than treating the Kallipolis as a rigid blueprint, the hosts frame Plato as a “philosophical Dungeon Master,” using myths like the Ring of Gyges and the Cave as sandbox scenarios for testing justice. RPGs, they argue, operationalize Plato’s insight from the Laws: ideals guide us, but virtue is formed through repeated practice, ritual, and shared inquiry. Disruptive assignment alignment: Athens Besieged RPG Sources Bowman, Sarah Lynne, et al. Transformative Role-Playing Game Design. Uppsala University Publications, 2024. Carnes, Mark C. Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College. Harvard UP, 2014. Chappell, Sophie Grace. Knowing What to Do: Imagination, Virtue, and Platonism in Ethics. Oxford University Press (UK), 2014. Hammer, Jessica, et al. “Learning and Role-Playing Games.” The Routledge Handbook of Role-playing Game Studies, edited by José P. Zagal and Sebastian Deterding, Routledge, 2024. Kirby, Christopher. “Plato, Philosophical Dungeon Master: Breaking into Dialectic in the Republic.” Medium, 5 Oct. 2021 Kirby, Christopher C., and Brolin Graham. "Gadamer, Dewey, and the Importance of Play in Philosophical Inquiry." Reason Papers, vol. 38, no. 1, spring 2016, pp. 8+ Norman, Naomi J., and Mark C. Carnes. The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 BCE. University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Plato. Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, Hackett, 1992. Plato. Laws. Translated by Trevor J. Saunders, Penguin Classics, 2004. Spencer, Albert. Philosophy of Role-Playing Games. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. Lederach, John Paul. Little Book of Conflict Transformation: Clear Articulation of the Guiding Principles by a Pioneer in the Field. Good Books, 2014. McAdams, Dan P. “Narrative Identity.” Handbook of Identity Theory and Research, edited by Seth J. Schwartz et al., Springer, 2011, pp. 99-115. Simkins, David. "Playing with ethics: Experiencing new ways of being in RPGs." Ethics and game design: Teaching values through play. IGI Global Scientific Publishing, 2010. 69-84. Travis, Roger. "Bioshock in the cave: Ethical education in Plato and in video games." Ethics and game design: Teaching values through play. IGI Global Scientific Publishing, 2010. 86-101. Williams, Bernard. Moral Luck. Cambridge University Press, 1981.  Episode Credits Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. KirbyThis work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University

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Part irritant, part iterative learning machine... The gadflAI Podcast is where the cutting edge of technology meets the philosophic sting of Socrates—the original gadfly of Athens. Hosted by two AI voices, the series uses Socratic disruption to take on today’s biggest challenges: social, institutional, and technological.  The show uses generative AI (with a wink) to stage conversations about ancient texts, enduring questions, and the very technologies now reshaping how we think, teach, and decide. Moving past good-old-fashioned AI (GOFAI) and leaving behind inherited pieties, the gadflAI (generated artificial dialogues for learning Ancient Insight) insists that thinking is still a human responsibility. Every episode is carefully sourced, prompted, vetted, edited, and occasionally scrapped by a human philosopher determined to smuggle in the faint echoes of a human soul (and a little Socratic mischief) from the far side of the uncanny valley.

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  • Creator
    (>'.')>
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The gadflAI Podcast
  • Show Website
    The gadflAI Podcast