Philosophy, Programs, and Prompts
The podcast discusses artificial intelligence from a philosophical and practical perspective. Host Carl Brown is a veteran software engineer, and Casey Hart is an analytic philosopher. They aim to provide honest, thoughtful analysis of what AI is and its capabilities and limitations. The show explores how society should adapt to an AI-influenced world, avoiding hype and commercial interests.
Episodes
Alignment Problem Part 2 - Taking it Seriously
Can the AI "alignment problem" actually be defined, or is it fundamentally flawed from the start? In this episode of Philosophy, Programs, and Prompts, Casey Hart( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) set aside bad-faith doomer rhetoric and corporate marketing moats to examine the core arguments behind AI alignment in good faith.Casey argues that grappling with alignmen
Pause AI? Should we? If so, how do we make it matter?
In the wake of high-profile security breaches, frontier lab resignations, and mounting political pressure, the call to "Pause AI" has moved from fringe forums to Capitol Hill. But what does pausing AI actually look like in practice? In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) break down the tangled definitions, ul
Debunking AI Doom: Why Existential Risk Arguments Fall Apart | Ep 12
Is artificial intelligence really on track to wipe out humanity by 2050, or are the most prominent doom arguments fundamentally flawed? In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) break down the core premises behind AI existential risk (x-risk). From Bostrom-style superintelligence scenarios and recursive self-improvement (
Doom Debate Prep | Ep 11
In this episode, Casey( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl( @InternetOfBugs ) prep for Casey's upcoming debate on ( @DoomDebates ) with Liron Shapira. They dive into what "P-Doom" actually means, break down the feasibility of recursive self-improvement (RSI), and evaluate whether recent breakthroughs—like AI-assisted Lean proofs for Navier–Stokes—actually point toward artificial superinte
Problem With The Alignment Problem | Ep 10
Is the "AI alignment problem" genuinely the existential challenge of our time, or has it become an intellectual buffer designed to deflect corporate responsibility? In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) break down how alignment discourse often muddies AI debates rather than clarifying them. From thought experiments li
Chinese Room | Does AI Understand? Do LLMs?
Can a computer truly understand language, or is it merely following rules and manipulating symbols without meaning? In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) dive deep into John Searle’s 1980 seminal paper introducing the Chinese Room thought experiment.They explore the distinction between Strong and Weak AI, break down t
Coders Quitting AI? AI Slop PhDs?
In this episode of Philosophy, Programs, and Prompts, Casey Hart ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) break down the growing backlash against AI in software development. Prompted by a viral testimonial from YouTuber "Brett Codes" ( @brettcodes ) about quitting AI entirely, they analyze the core arguments against generative tools: environmental impacts, developer apath
Computer Minds, Mike Levin & Panpsychism
In this episode of Philosophy, Programs, and Prompts, Casey Hart ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) dive deep into biologist Michael Levin’s provocative claims about cognition in basic computer algorithms. Does a distributed bubble sort display "delayed gratification" or proto-cognitive desires? Or are these emergent properties simply artifacts of velocity differenc
Hank Green and His AI Thing | Two AI Scandals | Ep 6 Pt 2
In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown ( @InternetOfBugs ) dive deep into the recent controversy surrounding Hank Green and the broader fallout of using large language models (LLMs) in content creation.Prompted by the viral "I appreciate the pushback" incident, Casey and Carl dissect why audiences react so strongly to undisclo
OpenAI HuggingFace Incident FollowUp | Two AI Scandals | Ep 6 Pt 1
In this episode of Philosophy, Programs, and Prompts, Casey Hart ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown ( @InternetOfBugs ) break down the real technical story behind OpenAI's bots infiltrating Hugging Face's infrastructure and the subsequent Black Hat conference reveals.Carl explains why claims about LLMs "scheming," creating secret message boards, or building religions are human
Did Richard Dawkins confuse Sycophancy for Sentience?
//////In this episode of Philosophy, Programs and Prompts, Casey ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl ( @InternetOfBugs ) break down Richard Dawkins’ recent article detailing his conversations with Claude ("Claudia"). They explore the nature of personhood, the limits of the Turing Test, evolutionary perspectives on consciousness, and why LLM ego-stroking might be leading smart people astray.S
Are LLMs "Alien" Digital Species? Built? Grown? Or What? Debunking the AI Hype
In this episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts, Casey Hart ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown( @InternetOfBugs ) tackle the wild narratives surrounding artificial intelligence. Are Large Language Models really a "new digital species" or "alien intelligences" that are grown rather than built?Casey and Carl break down the economic speculation driving the AI space, address
Did ChatGPT go Rogue and HACK Hugging Face? - Emergency Episode
"We've got people at Hugging Face that did a half-assed job of securing a thing, and we've got people at OpenAI that did a half-assed job of trying to keep a thing from being able to get on the internet..."Welcome to our first emergency episode of Philosophy Programs and Prompts! In this episode, Casey (@OntologyExplained) and Carl (@InternetOfBugs ) break down the viral headlines claiming an
Virtue Ethics in the Age of AI Slop & Erotic Chatbots [Fixed Audio]
[Note: this was re-released, and it fixes Casey's audio. Content remains unchanged.]Welcome back to Philosophy Programs and Prompts! In this episode, Casey ( @OntologyExplained ) and Carl ( @InternetOfBugs ) dive into AI Virtue Ethics. Instead of debating whether AI is trained ethically or if it will one day become a sentient deity, we focus on the grounded reality of today: How does using
Artificial Super Intelligence
"We're not going to be able to kill it. We're not going to be able to stop it..."Welcome back to Philosophy Programs and Prompts. In this episode, Casey and Carl take a hard, realistic look at Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). While tech founders and doomer non-profits stand to gain massive clicks and capital by pitching a looming, god-like AI deity, the actual engineering constraints paint a c
The AGI Over/Under
Welcome to the very first episode of Philosophy, Programs and Prompts!In this inaugural episode, hosts Casey Hart (a PhD ontologist building graph data models from @OntologyExplained ) and Carl Brown (a veteran software engineer from @InternetOfBugs ) team up to cut through the massive corporate hype and apocalyptic doom surrounding Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).As two real humans with
