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Hands-On AI (Audio)

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TWiT 7 episodes Nov 5, 2026

Hands-On AI explores and explains artificial intelligence and shows listeners how to use it in practical ways. Host Mikah Sargent covers how large language models work, running AI on your own hardware, using AI already in your pocket, and discovering unexpected applications. The show emphasizes practical, jargon-free help without hype or doom. New episodes are released every Thursday.

Episodes

HOAI 6: Will AI Tell You When You're Wrong? - We Push Back on ChatGPT to See If It Caves Nov 5, 2026 31:31 Chatbots have a reputation for telling you what you want to hear. Mikah Sargent tests that by telling ChatGPT it's wrong when it's right. Then he tells one made-up argument twice, with the same facts and only the teller changed, and pushes back on the verdict. He explains what researchers call sycophancy, one way training can encourage the habit, and why it can be easy to miss. Then he shares fou

HOAI 5: Why Does AI Sound So Generic? - One Prompt, Five Runs, and What Prompt Engineering Really Means Oct 29, 2026 31:41 Ask a chatbot the same thing twice, and you might expect two different answers. Mikah Sargent runs one everyday request through ChatGPT five times and gets back the same basic text, two of them word for word. He explains where differences come from, what research says about why tuned chatbots can narrow the range of their answers, and why these replies left out what only he knew. Then he fills in

HOAI 4: Is AI Deep Research Worth the Wait? - Four AI Deep Research Tools Get One Hard Question and a Stopwatch Oct 22, 2026 30:13 The big AI apps now have research modes that make you wait for a report full of sources. Is the wait worth it? Mikah Sargent gives ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity the same complicated question, plus ChatGPT with regular web search as a control, and compares how long they take, where they look, what they miss, and how much cleanup each report needs. Then he checks every answer against a re

HOAI 3: The AI That Does the Thing - Meta's Muse Agent Takes On Simple, Hard, and Weird Jobs Oct 15, 2026 55:27 What happens when AI stops talking and starts doing? Mikah Sargent puts Meta's Muse agent to work on simple jobs, hard ones, and a couple of weird ones: a weekly news brief, a day trip, a shopping cart that stops for his approval, a web page it builds itself, and a podcast about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. Along the way, he explains what makes an agent different from a chatbot, what Muse can

HOAI 2: Nine Billion Knobs - What's Actually Inside an AI Model, Explained Oct 8, 2026 55:21 What's actually inside an AI model? Mikah Sargent opens up the file from last week's episode and finds tokens, billions of numbers, and one surprisingly simple job: guess the next piece of text. Along the way, he shows why the same question can get a different answer every time, where all those numbers came from, and why a chatbot can sound completely sure of itself and still be wrong. Host: Mik

HOAI 1: The Chatbot in Your Laptop - Run AI on Your Own Computer, No Cloud Required Oct 1, 2026 25:00 Your next chatbot doesn't need the cloud. Mikah Sargent installs a free app, downloads an AI model, turns off the Wi-Fi, and keeps right on chatting, all on an ordinary computer. Along the way, he explains how to read a model listing, including what the size and "Q4" labels mean, so you can pick a model that runs well on your own machine. Then the local model goes head-to-head with a cloud assist

Welcome to Hands-On AI Sep 28, 2026 2:28 Hands-On AI is the show that turns AI confusion into AI confidence. In this introductory episode, Mikah Sargent lays out what the show is and isn't: short, focused episodes — most 10 to 15 minutes — that take one question, one tool, or one technique at a time. Some weeks go under the hood on what a large language model is actually doing. Some weeks get practical: the AI already in your pocket, or

HOAI: Hands-On AI Is Getting Into the Good Stuff - Local Models, Open Weights, No Cloud Sep 17, 2026 1:48 Qwen, Muse Glimmer, Ollama, llama.cpp, quantization, mixture-of-experts, RAG, tokens per second. On Hands-On AI, those aren't buzzwords — Mikah Sargent will explain exactly what they mean, then put them to work on hardware you already own. No cloud, no account, no data, leaving your desk. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access

HOAI: Hands-On AI Cuts Through Hype and Doom - AI Is a Tool. Here's What It Actually Does Sep 9, 2026 0:47 Depending on who you ask, AI is either going to save the world or end it. Mikah Sargent has a different take: it's a tool, and what matters is what you do with it. Every week on Hands-On AI, Mikah tests the tools everyone's talking about and tells you the truth — what's worth your time, what isn't, and what's actually going on under the hood. Hands-On AI launches Thursday, October 1. Subscribe a

HOAI: Introducing Hands-On AI - Everyone Says You Should Use AI. Nobody Says How. Sep 2, 2026 0:47 How many times this week has someone told you that you should be using AI — without ever telling you how? Mikah Sargent introduces Hands-On AI, a new podcast from TWiT.tv with short, focused episodes that explain what these tools actually do, then show you step by step how to put them to work. No buzzwords, no doom. Just practical help from one human to another. Hands-On AI launches Thursday, Oc

Hands-On AI (Audio)

Episodes

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