The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.

In this episode, Steve Schoger, designer and partner at Tailwind Labs, shares how he’s actually using AI in his day-to-day work, including tools like Claude in his design workflow. The conversation explores how AI is changing creativity, how it affects team collaboration, and what it might mean for the future of design and development.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter - https://x.com/mattstauffer
• Tighten Website - https://tighten.com/
• Steve Schoger on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SteveSchoger
• Steve Schoger on Twitter - https://x.com/steveschoger
• Steve’s video on X - https://x.com/steveschoger/status/2035077141050622173?s=20
• Paper - https://paper.design/
• Skogafoss Waterfall Hike - https://thephotohikes.com/skogafoss-and-the-waterfall-way-hike/

-----

Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.

Matt Stauffer talks with Karen Maria Alston, a 20-year communication strategist turned AI governance advocate, about why AI is impacting everyone, whether they use it or not.

They get into the real-world ways AI is already shaping daily life: deepfake photos on dating apps, AI-generated social media influencers with millions of followers, voice mimicry scams draining retirement accounts, and what it means that most Americans, including most politicians, still have no idea any of this is happening. Karen breaks down the case for voter mobilization, legislative action, and why individual abstention from AI doesn't actually change the trajectory.

The conversation also gets into identity, the social contract, and the deeper human cost of automation, including what it means to lose a job that was part of who you were, and what it looks like to be hopeful about AI without being naive about it.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter
• Tighten Website
• Karen Maria Alston on LinkedIn
• Karen Maria Alston on Instagram
• Karen Maria Alston on Substack
• Karen Maria Alston’s Website

-----

Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.

The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.

Matt Stauffer talks with Nick Peterson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary, ordained AME minister, executive pastor, and grant director, about the deep history between religion and technology, and what AI is really doing to knowledge, credit, and labor.

They explore how Nick uses AI as a tool for falsifiability rather than content generation, why the plantation economy is a useful (and uncomfortable) lens for understanding who benefits from large language models, and how the same dynamics that shaped the Gutenberg press, televangelism, and colonialism are very much alive in the age of Claude and ChatGPT.

The conversation raises harder questions about what it means to own an idea, what students lose when AI does their thinking for them, and whether the consolidation of knowledge in the hands of a few tech platforms is something new, or just the oldest story in human history, running faster.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter
• Tighten Website
• Nick’s Website
• Nick on Instagram
• Nick on Facebook

-----

Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.