Critical Thinking in the Age of AI
Voice notes from a humanist and Harvard PhD candidate on AI developments that matter. Each episode breaks down AI research, policy shifts, and workplace transformations through a humanities lens. No hype or jargon, just clear thinking about how AI reshapes work, knowledge, and society.
Episodes
Who Pays When AI Takes the Jobs? The Token Tax, Explained
Three-quarters of all U.S. federal tax revenue comes from labor. So what happens when AI starts replacing the workers that revenue depends on? In this episode, Shae breaks down a January 2026 Brookings Institution paper on the future of tax policy in the age of AI — walking through five proposed AI taxes, explaining exactly how a token tax works and when it does not, and asking the harder question
Before You Use Local AI, You Need to Know This
Hey folks, you asked for Part 2, and here it is. This episode is the context that makes the local AI discussion actually make sense: what the open-source AI ecosystem is, where it comes from, how to navigate it without making expensive mistakes, and why using local AI and commercial AI together is not a contradiction.A lot covered here!!Follow me onInsta: https://www.instagram.com/iamshaeo/ YouTub
Notion vs. Obsidian: Which One Actually Supports Deep Thinking?
WELCOME TO MY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS! Sorry for the singing, but the substance is there 🥹Most people treat Notion versus Obsidian as a choice you have to make once. It is not. They are designed for completely different kinds of work, and understanding that distinction will change how you use both of them.Listen to LocalAI episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y21VJtZszaIFollow me onInsta: http
The Ant Company: Why Small and Focused Beats Scale Right Now
The traditional full-time job is not disappearing overnight, but the conditions that made it stable are changing faster than most people realize. In this episode, I break down what the gig economy data actually says, why AI is accelerating the disaggregation of knowledge work specifically, and why the most strategic response is not to chase scale but to build with precision. She introduces the con
How to Use AI Without Using Data Centers: A Beginner's Guide to Local and Offline AI
There's an entire ecosystem of AI tools, many of them free, open-source, and running entirely on your own device, that most people have never heard of. This episode breaks down what local AI is, what you give up when you use it, and which tools are worth trying today. Including Jan.ai, Locally AI for Apple devices, and Obsidian for local project management. If your AI use involves anything sen
Uncovering the Plan to Keep You in the Dark About AI | IASEAI Day 2 Recap
There's a concept that reframes everything you thought you knew about AI transparency and it came from one of the most powerful talks on AI I've ever witnessed in person.At the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI conference in Paris, former White House OSTP Director Dr. Alondra Nelson introduced the concept of algorithmic agnotology: the deliberate, strategic production of ignorance
AI Safety Is Failing. Yoshua Bengio & Experts Explain Why | IASEAI 2026 Day 1 Recap
What is actually happening at the frontier of AI safety research? I attended Day One of IASEAI 2026, the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI, in Paris, and I'm breaking down everything you need to know.Follow me onInsta: https://www.instagram.com/iamshaeo/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamshaeo Subscribe to my Newsletter: https://shaeomonijo.substack.com/ Buy Me a Matcha: ht
Something Bigger Than AI is Happening. You've Been Warned.
I just published this essay and I wanted to publish the audio version so it can reach as many people as possible. Read + Share this essay, please: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaeomonijo/p/something-bigger-than-ai-is-happening?r=2ptp7i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=trueFollow me onInsta: https://www.instagram.com/iamshaeo/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamsh
The Real Crisis Isn’t AI, It’s Us
We blame students for using ChatGPT to write essays. We shame people for turning to AI companions. We criticize workers for automating emails. But what if the real problem isn't individual moral failure per se, but moreso that generative AI is exposing incentive structures that were already broken?**I recorded this voice note a week ago.Follow me onInsta: https://www.instagram.com/iamshaeo/ Yo
Who Controls AI? Mark Carney, Davos, and the Case for AI Sovereignty
In this episode, I unpack Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos and explore what they reveal about AI sovereignty, decentralization, and the global race between the United States and China.As AI infrastructure consolidates around a handful of powerful labs, countries and individuals are facing a deeper structural question: who controls intelligence
AI Agents Created Their Own Religion (Moltbook, OpenClaw, Clawdbot)
AI agents just created their own religion. On a social network called Moltbook, autonomous AI powered by OpenClaw spontaneously formed "Crustafarianism" complete with scriptures, prophets, and encrypted communication to hide from humans. But before you panic about the AI apocalypse, let's cut through the hype and talk about what's actually happening.IBM: "OpenClaw: The viral
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
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
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 inst
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. Drawi
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
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-t
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 &quo
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 issuesH
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 t
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
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