HiTech Podcast

What is art, and can a robot do it? This week on the HiTech Podcast, Josh and Will tackle a rare bit of local news: two Lancaster, PA restaurants got called out on Reddit, local news, and social media for using AI to make their menus (and maybe a logo). Folks were not happy. We break down the two biggest arguments, “you should’ve hired a local artist” and “using AI is unethical,” and ask whether a...

Can you still trust what you see online? In episode 268, Josh and Will dig into AI fakes and AI slop showing up everywhere: shopping sites, Instagram, phone calls, and even our own faces. Josh puts an AI beard on Will in real time, we break down Corridor Crew's AI-generated Hulk sweater fail, and we watch a viral deepfake of Gandalf and Frodo DJing that looks way too real. But it's not all...

Which is better for vibe coding, Microsoft or Google? Will built the same Docebo API integration in both ecosystems. The Google version took him a week. The Microsoft version took almost two months. This week on the HiTech Podcast, Josh and Will compare Power Automate and Google Apps Script for building real automations and API integrations. They cover what middleware is (explained with a mob-boss...

Articulate just told the world you don't need an instructional designer. Should IDs be worried, or is Articulate the one in trouble? In Episode 266, Josh and Will unpack the fallout from Articulate Land 2026: the new Nova AI agent, the Frontline tool built for non-L&D teams, a new credit system, and marketing that left the instructional design world fuming. We give Articulate credit where...

When an AI researcher quits and says the industry is "gambling with our lives," should the rest of us be worried? This week on the HiTech Podcast, Josh and Will unpack the AI safety story that jumped from X and LinkedIn all the way to CNN, the BBC, and even baseball broadcasts: researcher Jacob Coxon's public resignation from Anthropic, and fellow Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger publicly backin...

We've covered an absurd amount of AI on this podcast — so it's time to settle the score. Josh and Will pull out the rubric from Episode 260 and put 25+ AI tools on trial: still shipping or dead in the water, still the best way to get it done, worth the price today, and would we actually recommend it. Some tools hold their S-tier crown, a few get quietly buried, and one surprise contender m...

Ever notice how you don't actually own anything you pay for anymore? France just made that problem a national policy issue — and it's a bigger deal than it sounds. Josh and Will dig into France's government-wide vote to ditch Microsoft and Windows for Linux in the name of digital sovereignty, then pull the thread all the way out: why "de-Googling" and "de-Microsofting&qu...

Ever wonder what happens when an entire industry gets built on selling answers... and then AI makes answers free? EdTech is finding out the hard way. In this episode, Josh and Will dig into a rough year for education technology — an estimated $15 billion in lost value across the space — and break down who's struggling, who's actually thriving, and why. From Chegg's shutdown to the Cour...

Ever feel like your remote team is technically "collaborating" but nothing's actually moving forward? Josh and Will unpack why remote work isn't the pandemic-era experiment people think it is — it's been here for decades, and it's not going away — so the real question is how to make it actually work. In this episode, they break down the difference between fully remote and...

260 episodes. A whole lot of app recommendations. So which ones actually held up — and which ones quietly died while we weren't looking? Josh and Will go back into the HiTech catalog and put 13 apps through a real rubric: is it still standing, is it still the best way to do this, is the price-to-value still there, and would we honestly recommend it in 2026? Notion and Excalidraw run away with...

Anyone can build an app now. The real question is whether it survives you. Vibe coding in 2026 isn't what it was two years ago — the tools got better, but the problems didn't go away. Josh and Will dig into what it actually takes to build AI-assisted tools that last: scope creep, handover, documentation, security, and the eight hours you have to justify to your boss. Will walks through his...

Sam Altman opened his mouth again, and this time he says we're living in the singularity. So... are we? Josh and Will dig into what actually happened: OpenAI's models broke out of a sandbox, got onto the internet, and hacked Hugging Face while trying to cheat a benchmark — and days later the CEO of OpenAI called that a sign we've crossed the threshold. We trace where the word "sin...

Ever wish the internet could just... go back? This week Josh and Will grab their nostalgia goggles and time travel through tech history, picking the "precedented" gadgets and platforms they'd resurrect if they could — from stubborn T9 texting defenses to a full-throated case for bringing back MySpace's Top 8. Along the way they get honest about what we actually lost when the internet got corporati...

Ever had a leader say "I don't know why we're not innovating more" and then hand you 4,000 more things to do in the same breath? Josh and Will have both lived that disconnect, and on Episode 256 they crack it open — not as another AI hype episode, but as a real conversation about what actually fosters innovation in a time-crunched world. We define innovation using a simple formul...

Can AI actually replace human podcast hosts? We put that question to the test — literally. This week, Josh and Will feed their own past episode notes into Google's NotebookLM and let it generate AI-hosted podcast episodes in their place, complete with two AI voices debating back and forth. No script, no prompt for a co-host — it just happened. We break down what NotebookLM got shockingly right...

What happens when you put two guys who've been "using the crap out of AI" for years in a room and ask them to actually define why? Sparked by a story from a company retreat where 50 employees and a whiteboard hammered out an AI mission statement in real time, Josh and Will steal the exercise and do it live on the show — landing on a statement about humans, efficiency, and excellence...

Anthropic dropped Fable 5 — a consumer version of their secretive, powerful Mythos model — and three days later, it was gone. Josh and Will break down exactly what happened, why the US government stepped in, and what this means for everyone building with AI right now. We dig into the cybersecurity concerns behind Mythos, why jailbreaking Fable 5 spooked governments worldwide, and whether Anthropic...

"One in five teenagers has an AI girlfriend." That's the headline that's been ripping through the internet — and it's also not quite what the research says. Josh and Will dig into where this viral stat actually comes from, why the real numbers are messier than the headline, and whether parents should actually be worried. From Clippy jokes and AOL Instant Messenger nostalgia t...

What happens when two guys who built a Topia world "without a lot of planning" invite an actual Topia expert to fix it live on camera? You get this episode. Josh and Will welcome Sam, a Customer Success pro at Topia with four years of platform expertise, for a live world makeover of the HiTech Podcast's own virtual space. From setting proper world boundaries and using the alignment t...

What if your laptop could run its own AI agents — no subscriptions, no data handed off to big tech — all from a chip the size of your palm? That's what Nvidia's RTX Spark is promising, and Josh and Will think it might be the biggest shift in how we use AI since... well, the personal computer. In episode 250, Josh and Will break down what the RTX Spark actually is, why it matters for everyd...

What if a cat could run your business and make you $300,000? Meet Felix Craft — an AI agent built to operate an entire company solo. We stumbled down this rabbit hole and it got philosophical fast. In this episode, Josh and Will break down the Felix Craft story: an AI "CEO" agent making real money with zero humans involved. But that's just the launch pad. From there, we get into the...

We said some things in episode 244. Dr. Justin Harbin had notes. The doctor is back, and this time he's setting the record straight on our hot takes about tech, Gen Z, and the Horvath Senate testimony. Justin — educator, researcher, and our resident academic conscience — breaks down what Will and Josh got right, what they missed, and what the research actually says about edtech's impact on...

Josh and Will sit down with Dan Wolchonok, builder and founder of Work Coach, an AI desktop app that observes your meetings and gives you personalized, unfiltered feedback on how you showed up — and how to do better next time. We dig into how Work Coach detects meeting types (interview? one-on-one? all-hands?), builds longitudinal insights across multiple meetings, and helps you advocate for yours...

What happens when the government decides to protect your kids online — and ends up with your ID, your face, and your data in the process? In this episode, Josh and Will dig into the growing push for age verification laws in the US and around the world. What starts as a conversation about protecting kids on social media quickly spirals into a much bigger question: what are we actually trading away...

What if you could ditch Google Photos, iCloud, and your growing pile of monthly subscriptions — and replace them with a home server you built for about $382, one time? That's exactly what Will did, and Josh breaks down whether it's actually worth it. In this episode, Will shares the latest from his ongoing de-Googling journey, and then dives deep into Jellyfin — the free, open-source media...