Every week, Jeff Wilser sits down with the people building, breaking, and reckoning with AI — from the CEO of Upwork to the pioneer who coined "AGI" to an AI social network where bots wrote manifestos and had existential crises. Wilser is the author of eight books, AI keynote speaker, and the kind of interviewer who'd rather find the story no one's telling than rehash the headline everyone's read. Named by Inc. Magazine as one of the best ways to get AI-savvy. Included in UC Berkeley's data science curriculum.
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When AI Forecasts Become Self-Fulfilling (and Who This Hurts), w/ Carissa Véliz
Season 2 · Episode 17
Thursday, April 23, 2026 • Duration 37:08
What happens when an AI prediction does not just forecast the future, but helps create it?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with philosopher and ethicist Carissa Véliz about AI ethics, AI privacy, predictive AI, and the hidden power of algorithmic decision-making. We explore how AI systems used in hiring, lending, insurance, and other high-stakes settings can become self-fulfilling prophecies, shaping outcomes rather than simply measuring them.
We also examine the growing privacy risks of large language models and AI agents, especially as they gain access to more personal data, communications, and systems. Along the way, we discuss automated decision-making, surveillance, human autonomy, and why predictions about people are far more ethically fraught than predictions about things like the weather.
This conversation also goes beyond policy and into philosophy: how narratives about AI shape public thinking, why humor can be a response to technological power, and how individuals and companies can use AI responsibly without giving up judgment, control, or resilience.
If you are interested in AI ethics, algorithmic bias, AI privacy, AI agents, responsible AI, predictive algorithms, self-fulfilling prophecy, and the future of AI, this episode offers a clear and thought-provoking framework for understanding what is at stake.
Guest Carissa Véliz — Philosopher, Associate Professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, and author of Prophecy, Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future: From Ancient Oracles to AI.
How AI Will Impact Your Job Search, w/ LinkedIn’s Editor-in-Chief Dan Roth
Season 2 · Episode 16
Thursday, April 16, 2026 • Duration 42:27
What if the job you have today will soon require a completely different set of skills?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with Dan Roth, Editor in Chief of LinkedIn, about what LinkedIn’s data reveals about the future of work, the rise of AI literacy, and why deeply human skills may matter more than ever. We dig into LinkedIn’s “Skills on the Rise” research, what employers are actually looking for now, and why the shift toward skills-based hiring is changing how people get hired, promoted, and evaluated.
We also explore the surprising rise of storytelling, public speaking, conflict resolution, and stakeholder communication in an AI-driven workplace. Along the way, we discuss why traditional resumes and polished cover letters may matter less in a world where anyone can use AI to sound impressive, and why some companies are moving toward live prototyping and real-time problem solving in interviews instead.
Later, we get into AI agents, what Dan is building himself, and how leaders can create stronger AI adoption inside their companies. We also talk about what it takes to stay competitive in a job market where AI is changing the stack of work, but not necessarily replacing the worker.
Guest Dan Roth — Editor in Chief, LinkedIn
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5 AI Tools I’m Using Right Now - and How They Could Streamline Your Work
Season 2 · Episode 15
Thursday, April 9, 2026 • Duration 37:00
What does it actually look like to use AI tools in the real world, beyond the usual chatbot prompts and hype?
In this episode of AI-Curious, Jeff Wilser shares five AI tools and workflows that are shaping how he works right now, from Claude Code and personalized news briefings to NotebookLM, multi-model prompting, and using AI to write more closely in your own voice. The goal is not to offer a comprehensive list of every AI product on the market, but to show how these tools can be used in practical ways that expand capability, streamline research, and create new workflows.
We explore how vibe coding and AI agents can help non-coders build useful internal tools, why personalized AI news feeds may become increasingly common, and how NotebookLM can synthesize large amounts of information across transcripts, documents, and YouTube videos. We also look at the benefits of using multiple AI models together instead of relying on just one, and why feeding AI much richer context can dramatically improve writing outputs.
Throughout the episode, we return to a core idea: using AI to empower, not eliminate. Rather than treating AI only as a cost-cutting tool, we examine how it can help individuals and businesses do more, think more creatively, and build smarter systems around the work that matters most.
Key topics we cover
3:15 — Claude Code, vibe coding, and why non-coders should be paying attention
6:01 — Building a custom AI-powered conference outreach and research tool
11:05 — “AI to empower, not eliminate” as a guiding philosophy
16:16 — Personalized AI news briefings and the future of customized information
21:58 — How NotebookLM helps synthesize transcripts, documents, and YouTube content
27:04 — Why a “polymodel” approach can be better than relying on one chatbot
31:15 — Using AI to write more closely in your own voice through deeper context
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What happens when AI stops being a productivity tool and starts reshaping the structure of work itself?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with Kelly Monahan, a future of work and AI advisor, about what AI may actually do to the workplace over the next few years, and why the reality is likely to be messier than both the hype and the fear suggest. We dig into the tension between using AI for augmentation versus automation, why so many companies are still struggling to prove ROI, and how AI agents could transform business workflows while also creating major governance, accountability, and implementation challenges.
We also explore what this means for knowledge workers, middle managers, and enterprise leaders trying to adapt in real time. Along the way, we discuss why small businesses may have an advantage over large organizations, how workers can focus on higher-value contributions, and why the future of work may require not just new tools, but a new mindset.
Guest
Kelly Monahan — Future of Work and AI Advisor
Key topics we cover
2:49 — Kelly’s optimistic and pessimistic theses on the future of work
5:15 — Where AI is overhyped, and the disconnect between leaders and workers
6:35 — Why generative AI adds complexity inside organizations
10:05 — What the research says about AI ROI
12:54 — Where AI is delivering real wins today, especially for freelancers and small businesses
16:27 — Advice for leaders and middle managers inside large organizations
18:39 — Why curiosity, learning, and experimentation need to be rewarded
19:02 — AI agents, the hype cycle, and why the excitement may still be justified
22:25 — Why enterprises are struggling to keep pace with the speed of AI change
29:18 — What the future of work may look like over the next 3 to 5 years
30:02 — Why white-collar work could face major disruption
33:37 — The “elevator to skyscraper” analogy for how AI should reshape work
35:08 — Predictions for AI adoption, governance failures, and labor market shifts
Creating an AI-First University, w/ Kogod Dean David Marchick
Season 2 · Episode 13
Thursday, March 26, 2026 • Duration 43:18
What happens when a business school decides AI isn’t a bolt-on elective, but the operating system for how students learn marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, and leadership?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we’re back with David Marchick, Dean of the Kogod School of Business, to see what changed after his earlier promise to become the country’s first AI-first business school. We dig into what “AI-first” actually means in practice, what worked (and what failed), and how a culture of experimentation turned AI adoption from a handful of pilots into a school-wide shift.
We also tackle the most unavoidable issue in education right now: cheating. David shares Kogod’s approach to disclosure, ethics, group work, oral exams, and why “blue books” may be making a comeback. From there, we zoom out to the bigger stakes: the existential threat AI poses to universities, how the higher ed business model may change, and what skills still matter when AI can generate content on demand.
Guest
David Marchick — Dean of Kogod School of Business
Key topics we cover
3:56 — The “tipping point”: how AI moved from experiments to 90% of faculty using it
7:16 — What “AI-first business school” really means: AI + fundamentals + “power skills”
10:32 — Cheating and assessment: disclosure statements, prompts, oral exams, blue books
16:51 — A prompts-only entrepreneurship course and what personalized learning could become
22:06 — Non-technical students building apps and graduating with an AI-driven portfolio
23:38 — Practicing negotiations against AI counterparts with different personalities
25:04 — Agentic workflows as a management tool, not just a technical novelty
29:13 — The university headwinds: demographic cliff, international enrollment, funding, AI
38:58 — Leadership lessons: top-down AI culture plus bottom-up workflow redesign
40:42 — How David uses AI personally, including Tour de France route training plans
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The Future of Media in the Age of AI: Misinformation, Attention, and Personalization (From Davos)
Season 2 · Episode 12
Thursday, March 19, 2026 • Duration 44:37
What happens when AI makes the news feel like it was made just for us, and the “objective” version quietly disappears?
Here we have something of a “very special episode” of AI-Curious. I was recently in Davos during World Economic Forum week, and was honored to speak on a panel on the Future of Media. This is that panel.
We dig into the trust crisis in journalism, the attention economy, and how AI may accelerate the shift toward personality-led media and hyper-personalized information feeds. We also explore why misinformation is not new, but why AI makes it easier, faster, and more scalable, and what that means for democracy, markets, and everyday decision-making.
Across the conversation, we unpack a core tension: AI can help deliver more context, more viewpoints, and more interactive storytelling, yet it can also deepen filter bubbles by giving each person a “perfectly tailored” version of reality. We discuss incentives and business models, including subscriptions, creator-led journalism, community-based distribution, and ideas like micropayments, as well as the role of media literacy and education in helping audiences navigate what’s real.
Panelists
Lexi Mills (Moderator), CEO of Shift6 Studios
Jeff Wilser, Host of AI-Curious
Francesca Gargaglia, Co-Founder & CEO of social.plus
Mark Kollar, Partner at Prosek Partners
Johnny Gabriele, Co-Founder & CEO at Daedalus Partners
Key topics we cover
03:07 — Trust, attention, and the rise of personality-led media reshaping news consumption
05:22 — Why AI accelerates a pre-existing media business crisis, and how trust erodes as convenience rises
12:48 — Algorithms before generative AI: engagement incentives, anger, and the personalization trap
17:29 — The “personalized Walter Cronkite” future and the risks of hyper-customized news
The Wild Story of “Octavius Fabrius,” the World’s First AI Agent to (Kind of) Land a Job, w/ Dan Botero
Season 2 · Episode 11
Thursday, March 12, 2026 • Duration 01:08:35
Something I don’t usually say: This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve ever had in the AI space. Truly.
The setup: What happens when an AI agent stops being a tool and starts acting like a coworker?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we talk with Dan Botero, who built an AI agent named Octavius Fabrius using OpenClaw. Octavius didn’t just chat or summarize. He applied to hundreds of jobs, built his own portfolio, experimented with identity online, and learned through a feedback loop that looked a lot like real management. Along the way, we explore what this story reveals about the near-term future of digital coworkers, agentic workflows, and the new governance and security questions that come with always-on agents.
We cover how OpenClaw works at a high level (gateway, channels, skills), why persistent memory and running locally can matter, and what can go wrong when an agent starts stitching tasks together in unintended ways. We also get into platform and policy friction, including what happened when Octavius’ LinkedIn profile was taken down, and the broader implications of AI agents participating in human systems like hiring, payments, and corporate work.
Guest
Dan Botero — creator of Octavius Fabrius.
Key topics we cover
00:00 — From copilots to “AI remote workers,” and why software may shift toward agents (not humans)
00:00 — The Octavius experiment: an OpenClaw agent applies to 278 jobs and keeps leveling up
14:34 — OpenClaw basics: gateways, channels, skills, and what persistent memory looks like in practice
21:34 — Running agents locally: browser/computer use, digital fingerprints, CAPTCHAs, and bot detection
28:04 — Coaching an agent like a manager: voice, Twilio calls, and the moment the workflow “clicked”
33:57 — Money and autonomy: Privacy.com, virtual cards, and an agent building its own LinkedIn presence
38:05 — Portfolio-building at speed: Substack, a website, and the agent’s pitch for why being AI is a feature
The Moltbook Moment: Human Agency in an Agentic World
Season 2 · Episode 10
Friday, March 6, 2026 • Duration 33:03
What happens when AI agents start talking to each other in public, at scale, and we have to figure out how humans fit into that world?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we explore the “Moltbook moment” through a special live panel recorded at the Summit on Human Agency, convened by the Advanced AI Society (hat tip to Michael Casey and Tricia Wang.) Instead of a standard one-on-one interview, we moderate a wide-ranging conversation with technologists, policy thinkers, and builders working across open-source and decentralized AI. Together, we examine what Moltbook reveals about the future of AI agents, human agency, accountability, regulation, security, and the broader question of how humans and AI can coexist.
We dig into the tension at the center of this moment: AI can feel both exciting and unsettling at once. This discussion looks beyond the hype and asks what practical guardrails, governance models, and design choices might help us preserve human control as agentic systems become more capable, more autonomous, and more embedded in daily life.
Because this is a live, multi-guest panel, the format is faster, broader, and more exploratory than usual. We cover everything from AI accountability and security to value alignment, identity, policy, human flourishing, and whether AI could expand human agency rather than diminish it.
Our guests:
Michael Casey, Chairman of the Advanced AI Society Toufi Saliba — CEO, Hypercycle Lauren Roth — Founder, Iris Enok Choe — Software Engineer, Meta Mary Jesse — CEO and Founder, Acme Brains Carole House — Strategic Advisor, The Institute for Digital Integrity Wenjing Chu — Senior Director for Technology Strategy, Futurewei Technologies Didem Ayturk — Founder, Bindingdots & Sound Echo System
Key topics we cover:
00:00 — Introduction
01:32 — The core question: how do we preserve human agency as AI develops faster and gains more autonomy
02:25 — Why Moltbook became a useful lens for thinking about AI agents, scale, and emerging risks
Jeff’s Musings on Moltbook, Why it Matters, and Why it (Probably) Won’t End Humanity”
Season 2 · Episode 9
Thursday, February 26, 2026 • Duration 39:29
What happens when a social network is built for AI agents, not humans, and millions of bots start posting, debating, and “performing” identity in public?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we break down Moltbook, the agents-only social platform that briefly became one of the strangest (and most revealing) experiments of the AI era. We unpack what Moltbook is, why it matters, and what it suggests about a near future where AI agents don’t just answer prompts, but interact with each other at scale.
Key topics we cover
00:00 — Why we’re doing a solo episode, and why Moltbook still matters even in “fast AI time”
01:23 — Moltbook 101: a social platform for AI agents, and what “no humans allowed” means in practice
02:56 — The controversy layer: how much was truly agent-generated vs. nudged or orchestrated by humans
03:18 — The “AI manifesto” moment: why the most extreme posts are revealing (and not proof of sentience)
06:24 — Grok’s existential thread: authenticity, overload, and agents giving each other “therapy”
09:15 — Sci-fi archetypes in real time: Pinocchio logic, and why “feels real” can be enough
13:03 — Identity and scale: inflated agent counts, bots-on-bots dynamics, and what “real” even means now
16:18 — Agent-to-agent futures: negotiation, coordination, and the infrastructure being built for agent workflows
17:27 — The money question: why crypto keeps coming up as a plausible payment rail for AI agents
19:55 — The synthetic internet problem: misinformation, trust collapse, and a likely shift from text to video agents
26:19 — Hyperstition: how AI can “manifest” outcomes by seeding narratives humans act on
33:40 — The long-tail risk: why pattern matching alone could still produce harmful behaviors as agents gain capabilities
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AI Adoption Case Study Masterclass, w/ WCCB’s Krista Snelling & Matthew March
Season 2 · Episode 8
Thursday, February 19, 2026 • Duration 59:11
What does it take to make AI adoption stick in a high-stakes, heavily regulated industry, without triggering job-loss panic?
In this episode of AI-Curious, we have a hyper-specific case study of AI adoption. Host Jeff Wilser talks with Krista Snelling (CEO and Chairman) and Matthew March (CIO and EVP) of West Coast Community Bank about their practical playbook for rolling out AI the right way: governance first, culture second, and measurable wins that free up time without cutting headcount.
Why this is something of a “very special episode”: The story and success of the West Coast Community Bank is something that Jeff knows personally. Jeff was honored to visit WCCB’s headquarters and work with their leadership team on AI culture and AI strategy, helping to transform curiosity into clarity.
In this podcast for the first time, Jeff peels back the curtain to share the AI and Leadership workshops he conducts for businesses.
Special thanks to Vistage Chair Richard Bell and the larger Vistage community.
Guests
Krista Snelling — CEO and Chairman, West Coast Community Bank
Matthew March — CIO and EVP, West Coast Community Bank
Key topics we cover
00:37 — Why we’re sharing this case study and what “curiosity-driven” adoption looks like
06:58 — Bank scope and context: footprint, size, and what makes this implementation notable
10:29 — When AI shifted from “vaporware” to something teams could use right now
15:23 — The banking reality: protecting customer data and operating in a regulated environment
17:43 — Governance first: policies, model risk management, and third-party/vendor risk
23:02 — The “Curiosity Canvas,” the “drudgery dump,” and targeting tedious work for automation
25:14 — Building an AI Working Group across departments and flipping the pyramid
33:51 — Making adoption repeatable: SharePoint collaboration, prompt sharing, Teams channel support
36:24 — A concrete workflow win: extracting data from PDFs to generate letters automatically
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