The Human in the Loop

Enrique Cordero

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TECHNOLOGY

Welcome to The Human in the Loop, a weekly look at what’s going on in the world of AI. Every week, I go through the biggest stories, the weird experiments, and the stuff that might actually matter in our day-to-day lives.

2D AGO

Anthropic's $30B bet and the multi-agent shift

This week, Anthropic closed a $30 billion funding round at a $380 billion valuation while DXC Technology deployed autonomous agents to 115,000 employees. OpenAI shipped its first non-Nvidia model on Cerebras hardware. And across the industry, $660 billion in infrastructure spending signaled that we're done with pilot projects. The "prompting fallacy" is dead. We explain why multi-agent architecture is now the only viable path for complex workflows. Plus, the safety challenges that come with autonomous systems running production code in regulated environments like Goldman Sachs. If you're still treating AI like a chatbot wrapper, this episode explains why your architecture is already obsolete, and what to do about it before your competitors scale past you.

16 min
FEB 8

Claude Opus 4.6 vs. GPT-5.3-Codex

This week, AI stopped being an oracle you consult and became a colleague you delegate to. We're breaking down the 'agentic shift', the architectural change that lets AI manage code repositories, negotiate contracts, and run for days without constant prompting. You'll learn why the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is becoming the 'USB-C for AI tools,' how Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.3-Codex are transforming developer workflows, and why security teams are scrambling to catch up with autonomous agents that have persistent memory and broad system access. If you've been waiting for AI to actually change how you work (not just how you search) this is the episode you need.

20 min
FEB 1

Claude Drove on Mars. Then Amazon Fired 16,000 People.

What happens when AI stops waiting for instructions and starts making plans? This week, we unpack the seven days that marked the shift from chatbots to autonomous agents—from Claude navigating NASA's Mars rover to Microsoft letting AI make purchases mid-conversation. We dig into the architectural revolution happening under the hood: reasoning models that think before they speak, agent swarms that collaborate like hospital specialists, and the new protocols letting AI see and control your screen. But we also look at the human cost—Amazon's 16,000 layoffs reveal a stark pattern of capital replacing labor, while regulators scramble to catch up with AI that can act without asking. Whether you're building these systems, deploying them, or just trying to keep your job alongside them, this episode maps the new rules of the agentic era. Press play before your AI schedules a meeting about it.

16 min
JAN 25

Only 12% of Companies Are Winning at AI

This week, AI stopped being about what's possible and started being about what's actually working—and the numbers are brutal. Only 12% of CEOs report AI is delivering both cost savings and revenue growth. Meanwhile, the best AI agents on the market hit just 24% accuracy on real professional tasks. That's intern-level performance. But here's where it gets interesting: Anthropic published a philosophical manifesto about whether their AI might have consciousness. OpenAI announced ads are coming to ChatGPT. Google's DeepMind CEO publicly questioned that decision. The trust economy just became real. And the companies seeing returns? They're not the ones with the best AI—they're the ones who rebuilt their workflows around it. We break down what separated the 12% from everyone else, why the Davos crowd is worried about white-collar workers, and what the infrastructure race tells us about where this is all heading.

15 min
JAN 18

When Google Considers Launching Servers Into Space, You Know the Rules Have Changed

The week of January 12–18, 2026 exposed the forces reshaping AI—and they're not what you might expect. Google is seriously exploring data centers in space. Hyperscalers are hiring energy experts faster than ML researchers. DeepSeek introduced architecture that separates memory from reasoning (finally). And "vibe coding" went from meme to methodology with real tools backing it up. Meanwhile, the regulatory landscape is fragmenting: federal preemption efforts are colliding with state AI laws that just took effect, while the EU marches toward August deadlines with €35 million penalties. This episode breaks down what actually matters for IT leaders: the physical constraints that will shape AI deployment, the architectural innovations worth watching, and the compliance realities you can't ignore. The experimental phase is ending. The constraints are real. Here's what you need to know.

19 min
JAN 12

AI in January 2026: Hardware, Agents, and What’s Actually Changing

CES 2026 brought a wave of AI announcements worth paying attention to. NVIDIA unveiled its Rubin platform with claims of 10x cheaper inference. Boston Dynamics announced Atlas production at scale. Meta acquired an AI agent company for $2 billion. And several new developer SDKs dropped. This episode organizes the noise into what actually matters. We cover the hardware updates from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. We look at why hybrid model architectures like Falcon H1R are gaining traction. We explain how RAG patterns are evolving toward agentic memory. And we break down what “agent engineering” looks like as a emerging discipline. The thread connecting it all: the industry is moving from experimentation toward production deployment, with growing pressure to show measurable ROI. Useful context if you’re building AI products or managing teams working with these tools.

15 min
JAN 4

The Holiday Shift: How AI Systems Managed the New Year Surge

As we step into 2026, the artificial intelligence landscape is shifting from raw model size to architectural precision. In this episode, we unpack the critical developments from the holiday season (Dec 22 – Jan 4). We also discuss the rising trend of 'Agentic Verification' in software engineering and what it means for developer autonomy.

16 min
12/28/2025

Skills

This Christmas week there has not been too many news in the AI world, so I decided to go deep into a topic. Everyone has been talking about Agents and MCPs, but there is a concept that not many people are talking about and that Anthropic is trying to standardize. I'm talking about Skills and it is already in Preview in Claude.

15 min
12/21/2025

AI Reality before Christmas

This week: Gemini 3 Flash disrupts pricing, OpenAI becomes a platform, NVIDIA tightens its infrastructure grip, and CEOs face the ROI reckoning. What's working, what's not, and what technical leaders need to know.

19 min
12/14/2025

From Playground to Production: AI's Turning Point

December 5-14, 2025 marked the end of AI's experimental phase and the beginning of industrial reality. In this episode, we break down the most consequential week in AI history—when OpenAI and Google launched competing models on the same day, a billion-dollar content deal redefined IP licensing, and enterprise AI spending hit $37 billion (up 222% YoY). Whether you're a developer, engineering manager, or tech leader, this episode cuts through the hype to reveal what actually matters: the architectural shifts, the talent implications, and the strategic decisions you need to make now. Who should listen: Software developers, AI/ML engineers, engineering managers, CTOs, product leaders, and anyone making technology decisions for their organization.

15 min
12/07/2025

The Code Red Era

The digital hegemony has collapsed. It is late 2025, and the chatbot era is officially dead. On this podcast, we bring you to the frontlines of the "Digital Frontier Wars," where OpenAI’s internal "Code Red" signaled the end of their dominance and the rise of superior reasoning from Google’s Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5. But the battle has moved beyond screens. We investigate Jeff Bezos’s $6.2 billion "Project Prometheus"—a bid to conquer the material economy with "Physical AI"—and the fracturing of the web into a global "Splinternet." With experts predicting the end of white-collar work in less than three years, we ask the hard question: As safety scores plummet and machines enter the physical world, where does that leave us?

12 min

11 Episodes

Welcome to The Human in the Loop, a weekly look at what’s going on in the world of AI. Every week, I go through the biggest stories, the weird experiments, and the stuff that might actually matter in our day-to-day lives.

Creator

Enrique Cordero
Years Active

2K
Episodes

11
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Enrique Cordero
Show Website

The Human in the Loop