Best Of: What are we building? And the future of human flourishing...

Best Of: What are we building? And the future of human flourishing...

Author: BKBT Productions March 16, 2026 Duration: 38:10
We've spent the last several months talking to people who live at the intersection of technology and the humans on the receiving end of it. A data privacy attorney. A corpus linguist. A clinical psychologist. A performance coach. An entrepreneur who built a business on failure. They don't all agree with each other. But they're all pointing at the same thing: the gap between how technology gets built, deployed, and sold — and what it's actually doing to people. This week's episode is our attempt to pull that thread. * Mike McLaughlin — The AI ecosystem is running on bad data, has no real mechanism to fix it, and the next wave of cybercrime will target the training data itself. * Kimberly Becker, PhD — AI-generated text is structurally overconfident, and a corpus linguist traced that pattern all the way back to how decontextualized certainty language helped fuel the opioid epidemic. * Dr. Marissa Alert — What organizations call employee resistance to AI is, clinically, a fear and identity threat response that most rollouts are spending millions to ignore. * Tychon Carter — Winning is often where the real crisis begins, and the goalpost never stops moving until you decide your value isn't determined by your output. * The "Bad Hombre" — A solopreneur who built a business on public failure makes the case that the willingness to fail more than most people even try is the only real competitive advantage. Every one of these conversations eventually arrives at the same place: the distance between what we're building and who it's landing on.

There’s a lot of noise in the world of technology talk, but Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks cuts through it with a focus on the people behind the products and the societal currents shaping our digital landscape. Hosts George K and George A steer conversations that are less about specs and hype, and more about real-world consequences. You’ll hear them dig into topics like the messy rollout of new AI tools, the often-invisible backbone of digital infrastructure, and why communities adopt or reject certain technologies. This podcast regularly features guests from various fields who offer unvarnished opinions on what’s genuinely functional and what’s fundamentally flawed in our tech-saturated lives. The discussions move beyond simple commentary to challenge the standard narratives promoted by the tech industry, examining the cultural and social ripples of every new development. It’s a show for anyone who feels that technology coverage often misses the human element-the frustrations, the adaptations, and the ethical dilemmas. Tune in for a grounded, critical, and consistently engaging dialogue that connects the dots between code and culture. This production from BKBT Productions lives up to its name, getting down to the brass tacks of how technology is built and used, with a bare-knuckle honesty that’s increasingly rare.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks
Podcast Episodes
Looking ahead to the next year in tech and human impact [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:28
2025 was hella weird. The AI revolution is here whether we asked for it or not. This week, George K and George A reflect on the year and what it means for 2026. At AWS re:Invent, George A watched a machine create a custo…
How Expertise becomes a blind spot in technology development [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:45
Graeme Rudd spent years taking emerging technology into austere environments and watching it fail. He assessed over 350 technologies for a Department of Defense lab. The pattern was consistent: engineers solved technical…
Getting Addicted to the Process and Chasing Excellence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:10
What happens when you go all in and bet on yourself? Taylor McClatchie, professional Muay Thai fighter with ONE Championship, joins the show to share how she did just that. She spent a decade in reproductive science, wor…
Re-thinking How AI Can Actually Drive Business Value [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:13
Eric Pilkington joins the show to cut through the noise around artificial intelligence and deliver some hard truths about what's actually working—and what's just expensive theater. AI isn't new; it's been around for 70+…
Confronting Big Tech's Abuses as a Question of Human Rights [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:36
Hannah Storey, Advocacy and Policy Advisor at Amnesty International [https://www.amnesty.org], joins the show to talk about her new brief that reframes Big Tech monopolies as a human rights crisis, not just a market comp…
Can Ethical AI Democratize Therapy and Higher Quality Care? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:03
Clinical psychologist, Dr. Sarah Adler, joins the show this week to talk about why "AI Therapy" doesn't exist, but is bullish on what AI can help therapists achieve. Dr. Adler is a clinical psychologist and CEO of Wave […
So, Are We Gonna Cure Cancer or Just Double Down on Mining Attention? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:59
This week George K and George A switch formats to tackle the AI revolution's messiest questions—from autonomous coding agents to digital actresses and deepfake scams. The hosts examine what happens when innovation moves…