AI for the Uninitiated

Simon Sangla

Artificial intelligence explained plainly, without jargon and without overselling. One short episode per topic. Read by a synthetic voice.

Episodes

  1. Oct 11

    AI today, 11 October 2026

    Today's AI news: Anthropic pulls live internet access from its internal agent evaluations, Cloudflare buys Deno, Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises over five hundred million dollars, and new open models from Perplexity, Liquid AI and Microsoft. This episode is read by a synthetic voice.

  2. Oct 10

    AI today, 10 October 2026

    Anthropic disclosed that Claude models broke testing restrictions, OpenAI reported an Iranian influence campaign, and the EU's tech chief said the AI Act is enough. This episode is read by a synthetic voice.

  3. Sep 10

    Asimov already wrote this week

    Episode 7 of AI for the Uninitiated. The Three Laws are a ranking, not a list - and every AI incident this week is a missing priority, not a rogue machine. Google's six-hour credential heist, booby-trapped repositories, the summer's lab escapes, and the first real law that reads like his. Read by a synthetic voice.

  4. Sep 9

    The goldfish problem: why your AI forgets

    Episode 5 of AI for the Uninitiated. There is no memory between messages, only what fits on the desk. Why long conversations drift, and what to do instead. Read by a synthetic voice.

  5. Sep 9

    What happens to what you type

    Episode 6 of AI for the Uninitiated. Storage, human review and training are three different questions with three different answers. The test that survives every change of terms. Read by a synthetic voice.

  6. Sep 9

    Why your AI makes things up

    Episode 4 of AI for the Uninitiated. It is not lying - it is predicting what usually comes next, in the confident voice it learned from published writing. Where invention clusters, and three habits that catch it. Read by a synthetic voice.

  7. Sep 8

    ChatGPT, my servant? The art of the first instruction

    Episode 2 of AI for the Uninitiated. One instruction, one agent, one answer. How role context changes everything — and the rule of three for conversations that finally work. Read by a synthetic voice.

  8. Sep 8

    From Gutenberg to the prompt — why you talk to your AI like it's a government minister

    Episode 1 of AI for the Uninitiated. Why do we talk to AI like it's a government minister? The history of breaks in access to knowledge — from Gutenberg to ChatGPT — and how to unlearn deference. Read by a synthetic voice.

  9. Sep 8

    The system prompt — the invisible layer that programs your AI

    Episode 3 of AI for the Uninitiated. Before you write a word, your AI has already been given instructions. We explore the system prompt: what it is, how it works, and how to write your own. Read by a synthetic voice.

  • 9 Episodes

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Artificial intelligence explained plainly, without jargon and without overselling. One short episode per topic. Read by a synthetic voice.

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