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2026-02-02
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How to Get Disgustingly Educated in Anything This Year

How does a historian learn AI research well enough to contribute meaningfully to policy conversations? In this episode, I share the six-step self-education framework I used to move into a completely new field, and how you can apply it to learn anything deeply.

We're living in an autodidact period where universities can't teach everything you want to know, especially about AI. This is about cultivating intellectual health, resisting the outsourcing of critical thinking, and getting disgustingly educated in whatever calls to you, not for credentials, but for intellectual sovereignty!!

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Critical Thinking Skills Guide: https://stan.store/iamshaeo/p/critical-thinking-skills-in-the-age-of-ai

Check out my Bookshop curated reading lists: https://shaeomonijo.substack.com/p/reading-lists

2026-01-30
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The History of AI Explained: 75 Years of Trying to Build Thinking Machines

Everyone acts like AI just appeared overnight with ChatGPT. But we've been building toward this moment for 75 years and every generation has completely redefined what "artificial intelligence" even means.

This episode traces the full history of AI: from Alan Turing's foundational 1950 question through the optimistic Dartmouth Conference, two brutal AI winters, the machine learning revolution, and the generative moment we're in now.

But this isn't just a tech timeline. No, I think it's a story about what we think intelligence is, why we keep building AI in our own image, and what happens when those systems don't transcend our limitations the way we hoped.

I reference a previous episode on the appearance of intelligence, so make sure you listen to that one as well!

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Check out my Bookshop curated reading lists: https://shaeomonijo.substack.com/p/reading-lists

2026-01-29
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How AI Is Quietly Destroying Democracy (New Research)

In this episode, I break down Woodrow Hartzog and Jessica Silbey's paper "How AI Destroys Institutions" and explain why anyone who cares about knowledge, power, and culture needs to get involved in AI governance NOW.

KEY POINTS:

How AI undermines expertise through skill atrophyWhy AI removes humans from critical decision pointsHow AI isolates us and destroys social capitalThe four institutions currently under attackWhy this is about power vacuum, not tech billionairesWhat humanists can actually do about it

Read the Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5870623

My AI Collapse Thesis: https://shaeomonijo.substack.com/p/ais-hidden-crisis-the-industry-is

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2026-01-27
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The Appearance of Intelligence: Why It Doesn't Matter If AI Is Truly Conscious

ChatGPT coughed during a study session and it broke a student's brain. For a split second, their mind processed: "Wait, is it sick?" This seemingly small moment reveals why the entire debate about AI consciousness is asking the wrong question.

In this episode, I explore why the appearance of AI consciousness matters infinitely more than whether AI is "truly" conscious. Drawing on Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena, and Foucault's theory of epistemes, I argue we might be entering a fourth episteme where language doesn't just represent reality?it constitutes it.

I break down Mustafa Suleyman's (Microsoft AI CEO) warning about "Seemingly Conscious AI," explain why it can be built RIGHT NOW with existing technology, and explore the three major risks: AI rights movements, psychological dependency, and fundamentally misallocated moral concern.

Sources:

Foucault, Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, 1966. Bookshop Affiliate Link for Paperback: https://bookshop.org/a/106838/9780679753353

Bookshop Affiliate Link for eBook: https://bookshop.org/a/106838/9780307819307

Mustafa Suleyman, "Seemingly Conscious AI isComing." Personal blog, August 19, 2025.https://mustafa-suleyman.ai/seemingly-conscious-ai-is-coming

"Researchers Performed Psychotherapy on AI ? Here'sWhat Happened." Nature, January 2025.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04112-2

John-Stewart Gordon, "Artificial Moral and LegalPersonhood," AI & SOCIETY 36, no. 2 (2021): 457?71,https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-01063-2.

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2026-01-21
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Why Does Work Feel Pointless? The Real Future of Work Crisis

Even before AI entered the picture, we'd already lost the plot on work. This episode uses a viral Substack article about "the death of the corporate job" as a launching pad to ask deeper questions: What is work for? Why do we tie our entire identities to our jobs? And how do we create a future where work actually serves human flourishing?

Drawing on Hannah Arendt's philosophy, we explore the difference between labor (survival), work (creation), and action (meaningful engagement)?and why collapsing all three into "having a job" leaves us feeling hollow. We also examine why the fantasy of UBI + infinite leisure misunderstands human nature, and why the future of work isn't only about AI, but about confronting questions we've been avoiding for decades.

Read the Alex McCann's substack article here: https://thestillwandering.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-corporate-job

**I was referring to the 2023 NEA reading study, not 2003. Read it here: https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-pleasure-all-signs-show-slump

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2026-01-15
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Does AI really use that much water? The Truth About AI's Environmental Impact

AI data centers are reshaping communities, but they?re not inevitable, and they?re not unregulated. In this episode, we break down Microsoft?s new ?Community-First AI Infrastructure? commitments, analyze what they actually mean, and explain how real communities have already blocked or reshaped AI data center projects.

Read the announcement with me while you listen: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2026/01/13/community-first-ai-infrastructure/

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2026-01-13
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When Did Humans Stop Being the Default? The Coming 'Organic Label' for Human Content

In this episode, I walk through the cultural reckoning that's already begun:

A Japanese author wins a prestigious literary prize, then reveals 5% was ChatGPT-generated, sparking a crisis about what "using AI" even meansSam Altman (OpenAI's CEO) is building iris-scanning technology to verify human identity because he knows what's comingThe Authors Guild is racing to create "human-made" labels for booksBut here's the problem: How do we define "human-made" when AI is in our spell-checkers, our research tools, our editing software, our creative process?

At what percentage does something stop being yours? At what point in the process does AI involvement "count"? And who gets to decide?

These aren't hypothetical questions. These are the standards being set right now?in awards committees, publishing houses, galleries, and platforms. The defaults being established today will shape what gets valued, compensated, and trusted for decades.

This episode isn't about being pro-AI or anti-AI, especially now that AI is everywhere and embedded. It's about being intentional. Because this shift is happening whether we're ready or not, and we get to decide what we value in the transition.

I want to hear your thoughts: Should human-made content carry a premium? Would you pay attention to a "human-made" label? If you discovered something you loved was AI-generated, would that change how you feel about it?

Let's figure this out together.

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2026-01-10
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Critical Thinking 101: Arguments, Premises & Cognitive Biases | Essential Skills for the AI Age

Learn the fundamental building blocks of critical thinking in this foundational episode. I break down what critical thinking actually means in practice and give you the tools to evaluate claims, spot weak arguments, and avoid cognitive biases.

In this episode, you'll learn:

What critical thinking really is (and why it's not just being smart)The difference between beliefs, claims, and issuesHow to identify premises and conclusions in argumentsConfirmation bias: why we notice information that confirms our beliefsBelief bias: how our pre-existing beliefs affect our evaluation of logicWhy these skills are essential for navigating AI and information overload

This is a reference episode, so please bookmark it and return whenever you need a reminder of what clear thinking looks like.

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2026-01-08
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California's AI Transparency Law and the xAI Lawsuit: What You Need to Know

California just implemented one of the most comprehensive AI transparency laws in the country and it's already facing a constitutional challenge. In this episode, I break down California Assembly Bill 2013, the AI Data Transparency Act that went into effect January 1, 2026, and xAI's lawsuit filed just days before.

What is AB 2013?The law requires AI companies doing business in California to publicly disclose detailed information about the datasets used to train their generative AI systems including sources, whether copyrighted material was used, cleaning processes, and more.

Why is xAI suing?xAI argues the law forces them to reveal valuable trade secrets, violates the First Amendment by compelling speech, and is unconstitutionally vague. Their central claim: this information helps competitors replicate their models but doesn't actually help consumers make informed decisions.

The bigger questions:This lawsuit raises critical questions about AI governance: How do we audit black-box systems? Who decides what "aligned AI" means? What happens when critical infrastructure is completely opaque? And how do we balance innovation incentives with democratic oversight?

Topics covered:

California AB 2013 requirements xAI's constitutional arguments The epistemological stakes of AI transparencyThe AI data scarcity crisis and industry responsesTrade secrets vs. public right to knowWhat this means for the future of AI regulation

Key questions for you:What level of transparency should we demand from AI systems that make decisions about our lives? Should training data be considered proprietary trade secrets? How do we create accountability for systems we can't fully understand?

This is the second episode of Critical Thinking in the Age of AI, a podcast about AI's intersection with culture, society, and what it means to be human. If you care about thinking critically about our collective AI future, subscribe and join the conversation.

Resources mentioned:California AB 2013: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2013

xAI v. Bonta Lawsuit (Case No. 2:25-cv-12295): PDF linked in this article: https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/12/31/elon-musks-xai-represented-by-clement-murphy-firm-sues-california-law-ab-2013-the-generative-ai-training-data-transparency-act/

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2026-01-07
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How AI will impact your life in 2026

2026 won't be defined by what AI can do, but how we respond to the way it's already been impacting our lives.

In this episode, I share my 8 predictions for 2026: from the cultural reckoning coming when AI-made/assisted art wins major awards, to the rise of explainable AI, to a philosophical rebellion rooted in our deep human need for recognition.

We get into Alexandre Kojève's philosophy of recognition, Ubuntu philosophy ("I am because you are"), why privacy-first AI is about to go mainstream, and why I think AI policy will create a new kind of single-issue voter.

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Here is the post on the 5 different kinds of data: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaeomonijo/p/what-is-the-most-valuable-kind-of?r=2ptp7i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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