ON_Discourse

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel are still processing the implications of last week's conversation with Sam and the rollout of OpenClaw — and why it's changing the way they think about the web. This week, the team reveals what happened when they deployed their AI agent DOMA into the Signal group chat where they actually work, and why it felt less like a product demo and more like hiring a new teammate.Details of the show:Why Dan believes the last 40 years of GUI design was a detour — and we're back to the prompt box where we startedWhat happened when DOMA showed up in Signal and the team knew within two minutes something had shiftedThe difference between AI you go to and AI that meets you where you already areWhy the ON_Discourse emergency Group Chat drew record attendance and off-the-charts energyThe Back to the Future 3 ice machine as the perfect metaphor for where most AI workflows are right now

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel welcome Sam Broe, career technologist and architect of (domain), to unpack why Claude Code and the open-source project Claudebot (now OpenClaw) represent something far bigger than a better coding tool. Sam makes the case that giving an AI agent root-level access to your computer fundamentally changes how the internet works — and that the platforms trying to lock down their APIs are already fighting a losing battle.Details of the show:Why Claude Code isn't a coding tool — it's a translator between humans and the raw language of computersHow Claudebot bypasses API restrictions by simply reading what's on the screen, the same way a human wouldSam's "right to delegate" concept — if you can do it yourself or hire someone to do it, your AI agent should be able to do it tooWhy Web3 and zero-knowledge proofs might finally have their "why" moment as AI's security layerThe canary in the coal mine: everyday people opening Terminal on their computers

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel reunite after a long January to unpack what happened when ON_Discourse members went hands-on with Moltbot (formerly Claudebot, now OpenClaw) — an open-source AI agent with full shell access to your computer, your email, your calendar, and everything else. What started as an emergency Group Chat turned into one of the most unsettling Follow My Flow sessions yet, with even the most advanced members shutting the tool down because it got too weird.Details in the show:How Clawdbot makes it easy to forget completed workThe difference between automating a defined process and giving an agent undefined access to act on your behalfWhy Moltbot is different than previous agentsWhy the most advanced users are spending all their energy on context engineering instead of the actual work

Dr. Ami Bhatt—practicing cardiologist, chief innovation officer, and chair of the FDA's digital health committee—joins Toby and a group of ON_Discourse members who to talk (privately) about what AI can and can't do in medicine. She argues that context, nuance, and edge cases will always belong to humans, while AI handles the compute-heavy work our brains can't do alone. The conversation spans wearables, why TikTok might be the most effective healthcare educator, and why the patient is no longer the "last mile" of healthcare.Details in the show:Context, nuance, and edge cases: the three things AI can't replaceDesperation is the mother of adoption": why healthcare finally embraced digitalPatient agency vs. healthcare consumerismWhy chatbots sometimes outperform doctors at explaining thingsTikTok as healthcare educator: meeting people where they areBlood pressure: the one metric everyone should trackWearables and the trust gap between doctors and devices

Toby sits down with Segun Oduolowu—journalist, media veteran, and executive communications coach—at CES to talk about what AI is doing to communication, editorial judgment, and slop. Segun has worked across CNN, network TV, and digital, and now coaches C-suite executives on how to actually sound like themselves. He's pessimistic. The algorithm rewards clicks over facts. TikTokers with no credentials outpace real journalists. CEOs send unedited ChatGPT memos and wonder why no one trusts them. Toby pushes back with a case for human+AI collaboration. They don't fully agree.Details in the show:AI as Pandora's box: you can't tell what's real anymoreThe algorithm decides what's news—clicks over factsTikTokers with 5 million followers and no credentials outpacing legacy mediaThe misspelling trick: do it wrong on purpose to boost engagementPNP: Personality and Proficiency—the only two things that matterAI as assistant, not voice: the rewrite is everythingWhy the younger generation can smell insincerity instantly

Our first podcast in 2026 is a joint episode. Toby and Dan join Matt Britton, host of the Speed of Culture podcast and CEO of Suzy, at CES to debate who wins when everyone can make. They clash on how fast AI is actually reshaping the labor market, whether big tech layoffs are really AI-driven, and what happens to creative careers when craft gets democratized. Dan pushes back. Matt doubles down. Nobody fully agrees.Details of the show:The pace debate: Is AI is moving faster than anything we've seen or is it actually moving slowly.Big tech layoffs aren't what they seem: normal market cycle or AI storm?Democratization lowers quality: the rise of good taste.The $300K creative director is at risk: the "good enough" middle tier of creative careers is getting squeezed.Zero to one is easy now. One to hundred is still hard: You can build a $2M ARR company solo, but building the next Apple still requires people, tenacity, and systems.AI isolates us: The tools are optimized to keep you alone. The opportunity is in building for human connection, not just automation.

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel end the year by flipping the script. After letting Dan respond to everyone else's provocations in a previous episode, this time Toby and Chmiel throw Dan's hottest takes, weirdest perspectives, and biggest contradictions right back in his face. From his prediction that linear TV advertising would be dead by now to his thoughts on gobbledygook and autonomous cars, Dan defends (or admits he got wrong) his most memorable moments from the past year.Details of the show:Dan's contradictions on generated slopThe transformative influence of ChatGPT in 5 years (but not now)What "transformative" actually means at CESHow to pronounce gobbledygook

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel invite two last-minute guests with competing perspectives about the future of IP and AI. On one side is Craig Elimeliah, Chief Creative Officer at Code and Theory who wrote a provocative LinkedIn post that Eriq Gardner, Founding Partner at Puck (and Dan's brother) called "gobbledygook spit out by a machine."Details of the show:Why Craig thinks Disney's Sora deal represents a fundamental shift in how IP worksEric's skepticism about whether this is meaningful change or just corporate partnership jargonWhether "invitation to participate" is a real framework or just nice-sounding languageWhy media companies are scrambling to figure out AI deals before they understand what they're dealing with

Dan, Toby, and Chmiel break down their 3rd annual Provocations Not Predictions event, where ON_Discourse members submit their most challenging questions for the year ahead. In this episode, they debate whether AI will actually deliver transformative change in 2026 or if we're stuck automating yesterday's workflows with tomorrow's tools.Details in the show:Why provocations force harder thinking than predictionsThe difference between automating old processes and fundamentally changing how we workWhether new hardware (glasses, wristbands, connected ecosystems) will actually ship in 2026Why we might already have everything we're going to getWhat it means when three years after ChatGPT, the only real change is tactical efficiency