Married to the Machine: Living with AI

Something kicked off in late January. Moltbook - a social space for AI agents. Somewhere humans could, apparently, only observe. Is it really sci-fi adjacent? Prof Dave explains what appears to be going on.
And we talk to the Leader of Barnsley Council, as it is crowned the UK's first Tech Town.
Further reading:
https://hai.stanford.edu/policy/simulating-human-behavior-with-ai-agents
https://theconversation.com/uk
bbc.com/news/articles/c8j3dvjld94o
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/liz-kendalls-speech-at-bloomberg
Credit: Unison Ants and Bear ad: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2004/10/unison-kicks-off-one-in-a-million-recruitment-drive/
Some of our sketch voices and the AI Guy are created using Google AI Studio.
Presenters: Professor David Reid and Stephanie Power
Recording, editing and mixing: Stephanie Power
Music and additional material: Matt Power
Married To The Machine: Living With AI, is a news podcast, currently in proof-of-concept stage. it is a non-commercial entity.

Vibe Coding was the Collins Dictionary 2025 'word' of the year. But what is it? Who coined the phrase? And what are the pitfalls of using vibe coding for digital creation?
In this bonus episode, we answer all those questions, and wonder if the former Chief Constable of West Midlands Police understands what AI is.
Further reading:
https://blog.tenzai.com/bad-vibes-comparing-the-secure-coding-capabilities-of-popular-coding-agents/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/beginner-vibe-coding-apps-cursor-replit-hands-on/
https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/01/02/a-new-worst-coder-has-entered-the-chat-vibe-coding-without-code-knowledge/
Academic paper from Massey University, NZ; Wuhan University, China; Polytechnique Montreal, Canada: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.05239
The 70 30 problem explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvZGJVAZwr0&t=271s
Andrej Kaparthy Vibe Coding Tweet: https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383?lang=en
The paper that suggests vibe coding slows developers down, METR: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.09089
An alternative viewpoint:
https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/i-literally-just-said-vibe-coding-was-gone-then-cursor-2-0-dropped-e3a10695cbf3
Presenters: Professor David Reid and Stephanie Power
Recording, editing and mixing: Stephanie Power
Music and additional material: Matt Power
Married To The Machine: Living With AI, is a news podcast, currently in proof-of-concept stage. It is a non-commercial entity.
Credits: BT advert 'Ology' 1988, The IT Crowd 'The Internet Is Coming' Retort for Channel 4, 2013

The Department for Education has comissioned a review into the schools curriculum. But have they done enough on AI? The Prof thinks not.
And we try to work out what AI the Ministry of Justice is planning to use to stop prisoners going AWOL.
Presenters: Professor David Reid and Stephanie Power
Recording and Editing: Stephanie Power
Sound Design and Jokes: Matt Power
Married To The Machine: Living With AI is a news podcast, in proof-of-concept phase.
Further reading:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-final-report
https://research.google/blog/introducing-nested-learning-a-new-ml-paradigm-for-continual-learning/
https://moj-analytical-services.github.io/splink/index.html
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/deputy-prime-minister-announces-new-measures-to-bear-down-on-releases-in-error-and-keep-public-safe

AI Workslop is costing businesses thousands, according to a report by Stanford University and Better Up. We explain what workslop is. And Prof Dave gives us an idiot's guide to deepfakes.
Presenters: Professor David Reid and Stephanie Power
recording and editing: Stephanie Power
sound design and jokes: Matt Power
Married To The Machine: Living With AI is a new podcast, in proof-of-concept phase.
Thanks to:
Nationwide Building Society for use of their ad, RTE, Better Up, BBC Sound Archive, Jordan Peele
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/1026/1540488-deep-fake-concerns/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE1KWpoX9Hk

Professor David Reid, Stephanie Power and the AI Guy discuss scraping authors' creative works to train machines. With a new feature, 'Professor Dave Predicts' we talk about how far we are from AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, which is when AI can do EVERYTHING we can.
Concept, recording and editing: Stephanie Power
Sound design and jokes: Matt Power
Power Productions Ltd
Married To The Machine: Living With AI is a news podcast, currently in proof-of-concept stage. It is a non-commercial entity.
Credits: BBC Sound Effects Archive. AI Guy created by Google Gemini TTS.