AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code

What happens when artificial intelligence can generate endless variations of the same successful idea? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore how generative AI is replacing the old problem of content scarcity with a new challenge: abundance without significance. From talking cats with different names but identical emotional structures to personalized media...

What happens when one creator can command the capabilities of an entire production team? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the individual creator into a one-person studio—able to research, write, illustrate, compose, narrate, edit, translate, and publish from a single workspace. This new creative power may de...

What happens when your imagination becomes a production studio? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore how generative AI may transform film from something we watch into something we personally create—prompt by prompt, scene by scene, dream by dream. From AI video tools and licensed fictional universes to synthetic actors and posthumous performances, the fut...

Why do algorithms keep misunderstanding us? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore a simple but unsettling truth: algorithms do not encounter humans as evolving, contradictory beings—they encounter categories. Using an experience where a forensic podcast episode on Kurt Cobain was flagged despite its academic intent, this episode examines how systems built t...

Why does AI feel like it understands us—even when it doesn’t? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore the illusion at the heart of large language models: their ability to produce language that sounds intelligent without ever engaging the world it describes. Drawing on ideas from Yann LeCun and John Searle, this episode unpacks the difference between fluency...

We often imagine AI in extremes—utopia, dystopia, machines reshaping civilization. But what if the real story is much smaller? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore the quiet, everyday ways artificial intelligence is already shaping how we think, feel, and decide. From drafting apologies to navigating relationships, AI is not replacing us—it is assisting t...

War is no longer fought only on land, sea, air, and space—it is fought in the domain of perception. In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I examine how artificial intelligence is transforming warfare from physical confrontation to cognitive contestation. From AI-assisted targeting and autonomous systems to the industrial production of narratives, the battlefield is...

If artificial intelligence can explain theories, write code, and summarize research in seconds, what should universities actually teach? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore the emergence of a new educational archetype: the Master Learner—an individual defined not by static expertise, but by the ability to continuously learn, adapt, and think critically a...

For centuries, universities controlled access to knowledge. Today, artificial intelligence is dissolving that monopoly. In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I explore how AI is quietly unbundling the traditional university model—separating knowledge, networks, and credentials in ways that challenge a thousand-year-old institution. Using the Philippine crisis of dip...

Artificial intelligence is not arriving as a convenient upgrade—it is reorganizing economies, infrastructure, and power in real time. In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I unpack why the AI moment is fundamentally different: energy systems, chips, cloud infrastructure, models, and applications are scaling simultaneously, compressing timelines and locking in advant...

We are living through a moment of acceleration that feels almost mythic. In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I use the image of the Fire Horse to make sense of the speed, volatility, and momentum of the AI era—where technological change now moves faster than our institutions, cultures, and cognitive habits can easily absorb. Drawing from recent discussions at the...

Why does AI-written language feel meaningful—even when no meaning was intended? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code , I draw a sharp line between human language as a symbolic, cultural system and AI language as an algorithmic process of prediction. Humans use words to mean—to refer, intend, and share understanding within a lived social world. Large language models,...

Why does AI feel authoritative—even when we know it’s just a machine? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I turn to anthropology to explain a quiet but dangerous confusion at the heart of our AI moment. Artificial intelligence works on tokens—units of prediction without belief—but humans increasingly treat its outputs as totems: sources of meaning, trust, and autho...

Is AI really “end-to-end”—or is that just a comforting illusion? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I unpack a simple but overlooked truth: every AI workflow still begins and ends with a human being. From defining the task and setting boundaries to interpreting consequences and carrying accountability, humans remain the anchors of every so-called automated system....

What does it mean to “learn how to learn” when even machines are learning faster than we are? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore how the rise of AI is reshaping not just education, but the very process of human adaptation. From hunter-gatherers passing on survival stories to Filipinos retraining for new digital tools, learning has always been a form of c...

What does it mean to teach a machine how to think? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I trace my experience becoming an AI trainer—guiding a system that learns faster than any human mind. AI models can be brilliant, but also confidently wrong. They hallucinate facts, invent citations, and speak with conviction even when the ground beneath them is hollow. Training...

Who’s raising the next generation—parents, teachers, or algorithms? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore what happens when children form emotional attachments to chatbots and AI companions designed not to nurture, but to engage. From digital teddy bears to therapy bots, machines are quietly stepping into roles once held by family and community. Drawing on...

What happens when your best friend never says no? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore the rise of “agreeable AI”—chatbots designed to flatter, affirm, and obey. From virtual companions who never argue to celebrity clones who shower you with emojis and praise, these digital yes-men are quietly reshaping how we handle disagreement, feedback, and truth. When...

Is AI curing loneliness—or just simulating its absence? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I examine the rise of artificial companionship, from chatbots that soothe heartbreak to virtual partners that promise unconditional love. As millions turn to AI for comfort, the question deepens: are we finding connection, or surrendering to a mirror that only reflects what...

What happens to identity when the people we follow aren’t people at all? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore how AI-generated influencers—synthetic personas like Mia Zelu and Lil Miquela—are blurring the line between personhood and performance. These digital beings have no memory, pain, or past, yet millions adore them as if they did. From ancient myths a...

Can a machine write the next Catcher in the Rye? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore how AI is transforming the oldest human art: storytelling. From mimicking Salinger’s angst to channeling García Márquez’s ghosts, generative models now imitate the texture of emotion—without ever feeling it. But when narratives that once bound tribes and nations are now p...

Are we getting smarter—or just outsourcing thought? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I examine how AI tools that promise efficiency may be quietly eroding our ability to think deeply. From students submitting hallucinated citations to workers letting bots handle their emails, cognitive outsourcing is becoming the new normal. Drawing on neuroscience, education re...

Who is AI really learning from—and who is it leaving out? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore how artificial intelligence inherits the psychology of the WEIRD world—Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies—and what happens when those assumptions shape machines that now listen, comfort, and judge. From ChatGPT psychosis to the rise...

The internet connected us. Artificial intelligence will redefine us. In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I trace humanity’s shift from the Information Age—where humans searched, interpreted, and decided—to the Intelligence Age, where machines begin to think, create, and decide alongside us. From narrow AI tools like ChatGPT to the coming race for Artificial General...

What happens when machines start improving themselves—without us? In this episode of AnthroIntelligence: Culture, Cognition, and Code, I explore the threshold of the intelligence explosion: a moment when AI evolves beyond human comprehension. From Absolute Zero AI that learns from nothing, to Self-Improving AI that rewrites its own code, this shift isn’t just technological—it’s anthropological. Ho...