Enough About AI

Dónal and Ciarán return with more "Bubble Watch", reporting on the latest expansion in valuations, hype, and attempts to find new ways to commercialise AI. Among those potential avenues to income, they discuss emerging AI robots, OpenAI's decision to allow AI erotica for adults, and the push to get AI into education - as well as the associated concerns. This last quarterly update for 2025 draws together some themes that you've identified in your submitted comments and questions and tries to e...

Dónal and Ciarán explore the increasingly looming questions about the overinflation of the major AI companies' valuations and the anxiety about whether we are in a bubble - and what might happen if it pops. Relevant to their discussion of the need for AI models to keep the hype levels high, they discuss the muted reception to the release of ChatGPT-5 and some of the emerging strategies to make AI chatbots more palatable to certain audiences who are worried about "woke". Topics in this episode...

Dónal and Ciarán continue the 2025 season with a second quarterly update that looks at some recent themes in AI development. They're pondering doom again, as we increasingly grapple with the evidence that AI systems are powerfully persuasive and full of flattery at the same time as our ability to meaningfully supervise them seems to be diminishing. Topics in this episode Can we see how reasoning models reason? If AI is thinking, or sharing information and it's not in human language, how can w...

Dónal and Ciarán start a new season for 2025, with a slight change in format to bring you roughly quarterly updates on the themes and topics required to help you know enough about AI. This first episode of 2025, recorded in mid February, gives a summary of what's happened since last November and answers some of your submitted questions. (Thanks for those!) Topics in this episode We can't avoid talking about them: Musk & Trump and some of the effects they've both had on the AI space in the...

Dónal and Ciarán discuss the ways - both real and imagined in fiction - that AI could bring about civilization-ending doom for us all. What can we learn from how sci-fi has treated this topic? What are the distant and nearer potential dooms, and what can we do now, apart from saying thanks to ChatGPT? Oh, and note that listening to this episode may drastically affect your life and cause a future powerful AI to punish you in a psychic prison! Topics in this episode What is p(Doom) and why are...

Dónal and Ciarán discuss some of the concerns about misinformation and disinformation that have emerged with the rise of impressively capable GenAI models, and provide some detail on what their effects might be. They discuss the calls for regulation and how this has begun to take shape in the EU, Ireland, and elsewhere. Topics in this episode What are the implications for misinformation inherent in the current and emerging GenAI models?Why have there been calls to pause development, an...

Dónal and Ciarán discuss the vast ocean of data that Large Language Models (LLMs) depend on for their training, covering some of the issues of access to that data and the biases reflected within it. This episode should help you better understand some aspects of the AI training process. Topics in this episode What data is being used to train models like ChatGPT?What are "supervised" or "unsupervised" machine learning methods?How have the owners of copyright data, like news organisations, reac...

Dónal and Ciarán talk you through everything that's emerged since capable Large Language Models entered the chat a few years ago - up to late 2024, at least! This episode covers the companies, models, and tools that have become central to contemporary GenAI, and will broaden your understanding of where things are beyond ChatGPT. Topics in this episode What are Transformer models and why are these significant?How did OpenAI come to dominate this space?Who are the other organisations to know a...

Dónal and Ciarán go back, back, back to see how the long history of computing machines connects to the AI revolution we're in now. Topics in this episode How far back does the history of humans building machines to aid our thinking go?Why are French weaving machines and alcoholic poet's daughters involved?How does the history of computing go through County Cork in the 1800s?Who are Turning and Shannon, and why do workplace disagreements leading to new companies fracturing off seem to b...

Dónal and Ciarán start the series with some explainers that should help you sound much more knowledgeable discussing the state of contemporary AI at your next dinner party. Topics in this episode What is AI? Why has it seemed to appear so recently and become so important?What's the difference between AI and GenAI?What is ChatGPT and how do models like it work?What are the other important AI tools to be aware of?What does this technology hold for the future of science and society?Are we all d...