The token math ain't mathin', so time to get back to what makes us human

The token math ain't mathin', so time to get back to what makes us human

Author: BKBT Productions June 1, 2026 Duration: 40:56
The hype machine spent two years telling us AI was coming for your job. Now it's quietly walking that back. Why now? Follow the money. On this week's system update, George K. and George A. pull apart the vibe shift happening at the top of the AI economy: from Uber's COO admitting he can't draw a line between token spend and shipped features, to the broader reckoning hitting every CFO who signed a three-year AI contract without modeling what agentic workflows actually cost. The subsidized era is over. The bill is due. And nobody has a clean answer. But the harder question underneath all of it isn't economic. It's human. What happens when an industry skips straight from "how big can we make it" to "what are humans even for" without stopping to answer either? The two Georges reckon with soft skills being repackaged as vital skills, the neoliberal bargain sold to a generation of college graduates, and what Pope Leo's 42,000+word encyclical on human dignity in the age of AI gets right that most boards and governments haven't. A tech podcast about humans. This week, more than ever. Mentioned: * Jensen Huang on irresponsible proclamations [https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/nvidia-ceo-begs-execs-stop-fired-ai] * Uber COO on lack of ROI from tokenmaxxing [https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-andrew-macdonald-ai-token-spending-harder-justify-2026-5] * Ed Zitron on OpenAI and potential collapse of Oracle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHtGXCWXyZs] * Daniela Amodei on the importance of the humanities [https://fortune.com/2026/02/07/anthropic-cofounder-daniela-amodei-humanities-majors-soft-skills-hiring-ai-stem/] * Jamie Dimon on future job skills [https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/jamie-dimon-ai-will-eliminate-jobs-but-these-skills-will-get-you-opportunities.html] * What 2026 hiring managers are looking for [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/insight/experts-urge-shift-to-human-skills-as-job-market-tightens/gm-GMF1A41634] * Pope Leo XIV's encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas [https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html] * Marissa Alert on business outcomes planning first [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ABtVkMeFEFVkJ0YVXjRXV?si=a10dec23e96f450a] * David Homan on how to build real human networks [https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iPxqxL69EKDCox6FuSK0X?si=b564db6ac39e4d35] * Sharon Goldman on the small town impact of the datacenter buildout [https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oiUrqViDUNpRtWTPgfLN3?si=w5XsbmbSQ--CbxhtdjLR-Q]

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: 50

Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks
Podcast Episodes
BEST OF: 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 […
BEST OF: 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…
BEST OF: Finding Meaning and community in tech-fueled hustle culture [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:47
What happens when you get everything you thought you wanted and still feel empty? Tychon Carter won Big Brother Canada, gained fame and followers overnight, and felt completely lost. The success arrived before he was rea…
BEST OF:  AI vs Human writing, and what it means for our thinking [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:02
What happens when AI-generated text masquerades as human research? Kimberly Becker, PhD, a corpus linguist joins the show this week to talk about her study comparing human-written versus AI-generated abstracts in high-st…
BEST OF: The art and science of grit, ambition, & betting on yourself [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:57
The voices telling you it won't work usually belong to people who never tried. Nobody gives you permission to take a chance. You just do it. Chris built a 50K MRR business without a formal education, a tech background, o…
Season 4 Finale...and special announcement! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:20
That's a wrap on season 4! What's coming next isn't just another season. Fifty-two episodes took the show past its cybersecurity origins into conversations with a corpus linguist, a nuclear security expert, an Amnesty In…
Designing Human-AI collaboration to make people heroes not cogs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:45
No one gets fired for doing what McKinsey says. That's not a joke, it's the actual product being sold in half of enterprise consulting: credibility a board can point to when a decision goes wrong. This week, Tim Lidman,…
Deep learning vs Intuition: AI models for VC investing [Replay] [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:14
This past week George K and A were off for the holidays. We revisit an episode from earlier this season. What if the best investment decision is one where no human is involved? Brant Meyer, partner at Trac VC [https://ww…