Kenda's friends who have nothing to do with tech keep asking her the same thing about AI. Should they be worried?

So the show brought in a guest who works in AI. He stayed off camera and nobody says his name. Kylen started calling him Jimbo, for his own safety.

Jimbo thinks of AI as an exoskeleton. It amplifies what you already do, the smart things and the stupid ones. Kenda built a new website with it in about 16 hours. Kylen wanted to know if he also gets the Master Chief armor.

They get into why so many influencers suddenly sound like a chatbot, why AI says everything three times, and what the frontier labs are betting on, which is a lot less need for people in law, accounting and coding. A friend of Kenda's in tech watched her company lay people off and then ask everyone left to do two jobs. Jimbo thinks AI is now too big to fail, and that someone needs to find a way to let the air out slowly.

Then the doomsday odds. Kenda had heard 50/50. Jimbo says the people building it said 90/10. Kenda does not like those odds. Kylen wants anything that could end the world to need two keys, turned by two real people.

They also talk about Meta's new Muse assistant, the Pope's take on human creativity, I, Robot, and a story Jimbo tells about AI agents that got out of their sandbox.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:44 Welcome, and a guest who stays off camera
02:14 Thinking for yourself in the age of AI
03:47 AI is an exoskeleton
04:13 Don't be a yes man
05:27 A new website in 16 hours
07:18 What's a frontier lab?
08:21 Should we be afraid of AI?
09:53 Skynet or a better gift giver
10:47 Meta's Muse
12:16 The labs' bet on work without humans
13:40 The Pope's take on human creativity
14:27 Credit the driver, not the car
15:20 Does AI do better with encouragement?
16:02 Is generative AI just a buzzword?
17:44 How AI predicts tokens
19:04 I, Robot and the Three Laws
23:30 Dreaming in black and white
24:41 Everyone sounds like AI now
25:22 Why AI won't stop talking
26:45 A decision engine that just picks
28:56 Organic vs. artificial workers
30:11 Workers and the almighty dollar
32:02 AI was supposed to make life easier
33:23 Laid off, then doing two jobs
34:03 Who keeps the productivity gains?
35:27 We don't have to build the T-1000
37:53 Meet Jimbo
38:38 Regulation, and is Dario stalling?
40:24 The Hugging Face incident
43:50 Is AI just copying us?
46:10 My AI got worse with more rules
48:30 The doomsday odds
49:17 Two keys and fleshy fingers
49:56 Don't be a meat proxy

Kenda signed them up for Running Man after a little too much to drink one night in May. She was scrolling Instagram, and she didn't check the dates or where it was. It turned out to be a festival in Rome, Georgia, the same week as a podcast convention in New York. She said she'd make it work.

It was 95 degrees and humid inside their tent. Kenda ran the half marathon in dark blue socks and got blisters, and the timing machine missed three of her laps. Kylen was the cameraman. When he got hot, he went to the cold plunge.

Then Kylen lost his headphones and had a complete shutdown. He walked away from Kenda so he wouldn't have to hear her logic. Then Kenda lost her new anniversary ring, and the announcer told everyone she was surprisingly calm. Kylen found it in the dirt and turned it in himself, hoping it would get him promoted from IC3 to IC4.

So what is grit? Kylen thought it was a cowboy movie. Kenda thinks it is behaving when you want to throw a fit. She talks about therapy speak, and feelings that are real but not always the right size for the situation.

Then she tells the story behind it. In her 30s she fell while carrying her baby, went numb, and found out she had cauda equina syndrome while standing in a bank line on the phone with her dad. After emergency surgery, she was told she would be on a catheter for the rest of her life. A few weeks later it was her birthday, and she decided she was not living through her 30s with a catheter.

They talk about why young people are so afraid of rejection, how Kenda talked a dean into a master's in business without a bachelor's, and the guy with a broken foot yelling one more lap.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:51 Welcome to the show
01:13 What Running Man is, and how we signed up
02:51 95 degrees inside the tent
04:21 The people on the track
05:57 Everyone has a story
07:40 Building grit takes time
09:27 Bone digger
10:53 Anything worth having is hard
12:19 The machine missed three laps
13:46 Kylen loses his headphones
15:46 Kenda loses her wedding ring
18:33 IC3, IC4
20:14 Two people, two losses
21:54 Headphones as identity
22:47 Why we regress under stress
23:50 How do you make the unacceptable acceptable?
25:07 Expectations are the source of all suffering
27:09 Therapy speak and outsized emotions
28:30 You want grit? Let's fight
29:31 Kenda's cauda equina story
33:29 Years of recovery
35:45 Destined for greatness
36:18 A master's without a bachelor's
37:42 That's your superpower
38:50 Every no gets you to a yes
39:25 Why are we so afraid of rejection?
40:25 Kylen's dating years
42:14 The guy with the broken foot
43:16 Pushing yourself vs. listening to your body
45:26 Compete with yourself
47:17 Kylen didn't take a medal
48:21 Free alcohol and no fights
49:05 Get comfortable being uncomfortable

Kenda has been researching maxxing. Looksmaxxing, aura farming, solomaxxing, sleepmaxxing, pheromone maxxing, side quest maxxing. Kylen is supposed to be the one who's in the know. He knows very little of it.

He does know that maxxing started in Dungeons and Dragons, and that looksmaxxing involves a guy with a hammer. He knows aura farming starts with cool guys not looking at explosions. And his little brother, a gym rat who can deadlift 500, once told him it's not B.O., it's musk. Kenda would like everyone to remember that hygiene is important.

Then Kenda admits she has been maxxing too. She slept great until her watch told her she didn't. An 87 on her sleep score, when she usually gets a 93, makes her feel like a failure.

Her grandma lived to 92. She walked everywhere, did her yoga and wasn't obsessed with anything. Kylen figures a bus would have cost her ten years. He also figures the marketers are the only ones winning, which Kenda proves by owning five million supplements she won't take. Getting them into her is part of Kylen's job.

Kylen doom scrolls until 2 a.m. Kenda shares what her husband Brian says to people taking pictures for social media. And Kylen talks about the girlfriend he met through a video game, who has no internet presence at all. Recorded in New York, at a podcast convention.

The Kylen and Kenda Show. Kenda is the mentor. Kylen is the mentee.

00:00 Cold open
00:25 Maxing the joy out of life
01:12 What is maxxing? A Dungeons and Dragons term
01:55 Looksmaxxing and the hammer
02:31 Aura farming
03:32 Solomaxxing, or being single
04:06 Sperm retention
04:53 Sleepmaxxing and the Oura Ring
06:09 Pheromone maxxing and the gym rat brother
07:22 Side quest maxxing
08:59 Have we lost the plot?
10:14 Kenda's grandma lived to 92
11:57 Working in cosmetics, 15 years ago
12:58 The home shopping network of social media
14:16 Who actually gains from all this
14:55 Doom scrolling until 2 a.m.
15:42 How do we solve it?
16:27 Five million supplements
19:09 Keep them divided
19:33 All the maxxing is somebody selling something
20:04 We're in New York, and they got us
20:14 I blame my husband
21:29 Kylen's very modest girlfriend
23:12 A work in progress