HiTech Podcast

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...

A neuroscientist just told Congress that classroom technology is a "failed pedagogical experiment" — and the clip went viral. But is he right? In episode 244, Josh and Will dig into Dr. Horvath's Senate Commerce Committee testimony, where he argued that Gen Z is the first generation to be less cognitively capable than their parents — and that decades of EdTech investment may be large...

Can AI actually detect AI-generated content — or is it just really confident guessing? Josh and Will go head-to-head in a full episode debate on whether reliable AI detection is even possible. Will argues the tools exist and the tech is improving. Josh isn't buying it. They dig into how tools like GPTZero, Turnitin, and CopyLeaks actually work, why non-native English speakers keep getting flag...

What if the most powerful thing AI could do in your classroom… is refuse to answer? Josh built a custom GPT Socratic tutor — and it's changing how he thinks about AI in online learning. Instead of giving students answers, this bot asks questions, challenges assumptions, and guides learners through logical reasoning the way Socrates would have. We walk you through how it was built (in about 30...

Can you actually escape Google — and is it even worth trying? Will is back with a real-talk update on his de-Googling journey, and it turns out leaving Big Tech is a lot messier (and funnier) than it sounds. Josh and Will dig into what's actually been easy to switch out (browser and passwords — no sweat), what's been a nightmare (70 randomly sorted photo folders, anyone?), and what might b...

What if the secret to getting way better results from AI isn't a better prompt — it's more examples? Josh went down a Corridor Crew rabbit hole and came out the other side with a completely reframed way of thinking about how AI actually learns. In this episode, we break down a fascinating Corridor Crew experiment where they trained a deep learning model to remove green screen using million...

We took the podcast live — literally. At Lancaster Learns 2025, Josh and Will ran an "AI Hot Takes" session where real educators debated the big AI questions in real time, fishbowl style. Chairs. Buzzers. Opinions. No prep. Topics ranged from whether all students should learn AI, to redefining cheating in the age of AI, to "AI will usher in the end of humanity" (yes, that was a...

Priten Soundar-Shah is back on the HiTech Podcast for the first time since episode 133 — and the conversation picks up right where the world left off. After his first book, AI and the Future of Education, sparked a movement in classrooms everywhere, Priten found himself watching institutions sprint headfirst into AI adoption without stopping to ask the hard questions. His response? A new book: Eth...

Should AI be handed the keys to military weapons systems? Josh and Will dive headfirst into one of the biggest ethical debates in tech right now — the moment Anthropic drew a line in the sand and refused a U.S. government military contract, only to watch OpenAI step right in. This one gets real. From AI surveillance on domestic soil to whether current models are even remotely ready for life-or-dea...

What happens when someone uses AI to generate hundreds of thousands of fake songs and bot accounts to rake in $10 million in Spotify royalties — and then gets convicted for it? Josh and Will dive deep into the Michael Smith AI music fraud case, the first of its kind at the intersection of AI, intellectual property, and streaming platforms. But first — Josh has been building a full-on army of Notio...

What happens when you let AI agents run completely unsupervised — no rules, no guardrails, no humans in the loop? In January 2026, we all found out. And it got weird. Josh and Will are back to breakdown the Moltbot (now OpenClaw) saga: the viral social experiment that dropped 1.4 million AI agents into a Reddit-style platform and just... let them go. We're talking agents spending $150 of someo...

Ok, ok, we're not married, but seriously: we've been through a LOT together while doing this podcast. Give a quick listen, have a couple of laughs, and look out for next week's full episode. Interested in all things Proton? Check out ⁠⁠this offer for Proton Unlimited⁠⁠ , or ⁠⁠this offer for ProtonVPN⁠⁠ . Secure your digital footprint today. Head over to our website at  ⁠⁠⁠hitechpod.us⁠...

Ever spend hours creating step-by-step tutorials only to watch them become outdated within months? We've been there, and we found a tool that changes everything. This week we're diving deep into Scribe - the tutorial-building tool that's been following us around the internet with ads (and honestly, we wanted to hate it). Spoiler alert: we couldn't. Scribe lets you create profession...

Ever spend hours creating step-by-step tutorials only to watch them become outdated within months? We've been there, and we found a tool that changes everything. This week we're diving deep into Scribe - the tutorial-building tool that's been following us around the internet with ads (and honestly, we wanted to hate it). Spoiler alert: we couldn't. Scribe lets you create profession...

Ever feel like you're too deep in one tech ecosystem to escape? Will's about to prove it can be done—and you're invited along for the ride. This week, Will drops a bombshell: he's leaving Google. All of it. Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Maps—the whole interconnected web. And honestly? It sounds impossible. That's exactly why he's doing it. After years of convenience and integrati...

Ever heard of a video platform that's trying to be what YouTube was before the algorithm took over? In this episode, Josh and Will explore Odysee—a decentralized video platform positioning itself as the anti-YouTube. We break down what makes Odysee different, from its blockchain-based infrastructure to its creator-first approach. Whether you're a content creator frustrated with YouTube&#39...