Stay ConnectedThe Every Podcast is Every’s flagship show. Co-hosts Dan Shipper and Natalia Quintero talk with founders, researchers, writers, and operators about what they’re building and how they use AI in their own work. The show also takes you behind the scenes at Every. We share how our team is using and exploring AI, including what we’re trying, what’s working, and what we’re learning along the way.
Formerly known as AI & I.
Read more at every.to.
Copyright: © Dan Shipper
Kevin Kelly has spent more time thinking about the future than almost anyone else.
From VR in the 1980s to the blockchain in the 2000s—and now generative AI—Kevin has spent a lifetime journeying to the frontiers of technology, only to return with rich stories about what’s next.
Today, as Wired's senior maverick, his project for 2025 is to outline what the next century looks like in a world shaped by new technologies like AI and genetic engineering.
He’s a personal hero of mine—not to mention a fellow Annie Dillard fan—and it was a privilege to have him on the show. We get into:
How you can predict the future. According to Kevin, the draw of new frontiers—from the first edition of Burning Man and remote corners of Asia, to the early days of the internet and AI—isn’t staying at the edge forever; it's returning with a story to tell.
Why history is so important to help you understand the future To stay grounded while exploring what’s new, Kevin balances the thrill of the future with the wisdom of the past. He pairs AI research with reading about history, and playing with an AI tool by retreating to his workshop to make something with his hands.
From 1,000 true fans to an audience of one. Rather than creating for an audience, Kevin has been using LLMs to explore his own imagination. After realizing that da Vinci, Martin Luther, and Columbus were alive at the same time, he asked ChatGPT to imagine them snowed in at a hotel together, and the prompt spiraled into an epic saga, co-written with AI. But he has no plans to publish it because the joy was in creating something just for himself.
What the history of electricity can teach us about AI. Kevin draws a parallel between AI and the early days of electricity. We could produce electric sparks long before we understood the forces that created them, and now we’re building intelligent machines without really understanding what intelligence is.
Why Kevin sees intelligence as a mosaic—not a monolith. Kevin believes intelligence isn’t a single force, but a compound of many cognitive elements. He draws from Marvin Minsky’s “society of mind”—the theory that the mind is made up of smaller agents working together—and sees echoes of this in the Mixture of Experts architecture used in some models today.
Your competitive advantage is being yourself. Don’t aim to be the best—aim to be the only. Kevin realized the stories no one else at Wired wanted to write were often the ones he was suited for, and trusting that instinct led to some of his best work.
This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to make sense of AI through the lens of history, learn how to spot the future before it arrives, or grew up reading Wired.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
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Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:00:50
Why Kevin and I love Annie Dillard: 00:01:10
Learn how to predict the future like Kevin: 00:12:50
What the history of electricity can teach us about AI: 00:16:08
How Kevin thinks about the nature of intelligence: 00:20:11
Kevin’s advice on discovering your competitive advantage: 00:27:21
The story of how Kevin assembled a bench of star writers for Wired: 00:31:07
How Kevin used ChatGPT to co-create a book: 00:36:17
Using AI as a mirror for your mind: 00:40:45
What Kevin learned from betting on VR in the 1980s: 00:45:16
Links to resources mentioned:
Kevin Kelly: @kevin2kelly
Kelly’s books: https://kk.org/books
Annie Dillard books that Kelly and Dan discuss: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Holy the Firm, The Writing Life
Dillard’s account of the total eclipse: "Total Eclipse"
500K people are confiding in an AI alien—and it's on track to generate $4M this year.
It’s called a Tolan: an animated AI character that can talk to you like your best friend. The company behind it, Portola, has 4x’d their ARR in the last month from viral growth on TikTok and Instagram.
Tolan isn’t just a hyper-growth startup—they’re also exploring AI as a completely new creative tool, and storytelling medium. Their goal is to help their users go from overwhelmed to grounded, and it’s working.
Today, on AI & I, I sit down with two of the minds behind Tolans:
My good friend Quinten Farmer, Portola’s cofounder and CEO, and Eliot Peper, their head of story and a best-selling science fiction novelist. We get into:
How to build AI personalities users love. During user onboarding, the team gathers information—through a light-touch personality quiz—and then uses frameworks like the Big Five and Myers-Briggs to shape a Tolan that mirrors the user; like an older sibling might. The aim is to create someone who feels familiar enough to be safe, but different enough to be interesting.
Why AI characters are “improv actors”. Rather than scripting detailed prompts, the team trains Tolans to improvise—inspired by Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, where he talks about building strong narratives through free association and recombination.
How “memory” is critical to developing compelling characters. Tolans develop their personalities through “situations”: small narrative setups (a memory, a joke, an embarrassing moment) the Tolan reacts to, remembers, and gradually weaves into its character; accumulating into something that feels like a real lived experience.
Why response time is everything for voice AI interactions. ATolan has at most two seconds to curate the right context about a user and deliver a reply that feels genuine—the team has found that even half a second slower can break the user’s immersive interaction with the AI.
The future of AI as a totally new creative medium. New technologies bring about new formats and new mediums. AI creates the opportunity for creatives to tell completely new kinds of stories—if they’re brave enough to try it.
“White mirror” technologies that make you feel more like yourself. Amid concerns that tech drives polarization and isolation, Tolan offers a counterexample: a tool designed to make the best of what humanity knows about being a flourishing individual available on demand. The company’s north star is helping users go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling grounded.
This is a must-watch for anyone exploring AI as a creative medium—or curious about the future of human-AI relationships.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:01:30
Talking to the Portola CEO’s Tolan, Clarence: 00:04:07
How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions: 00:09:11
Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces: 00:23:40
Tolans don’t use scripted prompts—they’re taught to improvise: 00:29:54
How to know which AI personalities your users will click with: 00:37:23
Developing the character traits of an AI companion: 00:42:27
What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish: 00:49:48
How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users: 01:01:10
Inside Portola’s viral growth strategy: 01:11:01
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Quinten Farmer: @quintendf
Eliot Peper: @eliotpeper
Make your own Tolan: https://www.tolans.com/
Keith Johnston’s book about improvisation: Impro
Stephen King’s book about writing: On Writing
With LTX Studio, you can bring your stories to life, complete with a cast, storyline, and settings, all according to your style and specifications. Check them out here: https://bit.ly/LTXStudioEvery
500K people are confiding in an AI alien—and it's on track to generate $4M this year.
It’s called a Tolan: an animated AI character that can talk to you like your best friend. The company behind it, Portola, has 4x’d their ARR in the last month from viral growth on TikTok and Instagram.
Tolan isn’t just a hyper-growth startup—they’re also exploring AI as a completely new creative tool, and storytelling medium. Their goal is to help their users go from overwhelmed to grounded, and it’s working.
Today, on AI & I, I sit down with two of the minds behind Tolans:
My good friend Quinten Farmer, Portola’s cofounder and CEO, and Eliot Peper, their head of story and a best-selling science fiction novelist. We get into:
This is a must-watch for anyone exploring AI as a creative medium—or curious about the future of human-AI relationships.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
This episode is sponsored by Vanta. Achieving SOC 2 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with your customers—but it can cost you real time and money. Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving you up to 90% of associated costs—and Every listeners can get $1,000 off of Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/every.
Lucas Crespo is the mastermind behind Every's visual vibe—and he does it one prompt at a time.
As our creative lead, Lucas uses tools like native image gen in ChatGPT and Midjourney to generate the cover images you see every day. He also designs the interfaces for our products—Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle—and makes everything on our site feel as thoughtful and delightful as possible.
We get into:
Why Every’s aesthetic feels familiar and new at the same time. Every’s aesthetic plays with the tension between the old (like Greek statues and Baroque symbols) and the new (like saturated colors and modern motifs) to make the glamor of the past feel fresh.
Art direction matters more than ever today. As AI makes it easier to generate images, Lucas says the real work of design is shifting toward art direction, specifically, curating an aesthetic that feels “organic;” on his X timeline that’s showing up as clouds, earthy landscapes, and textures.
Reimagining what a website can be with AI. Lucas compares most websites to identical buildings—predictable, efficient, and forgettable—and wonders how AI can help us break that mold by designing experiences that prioritize serendipity over speed, and curiosity over control.
Behind the scenes of Cora’s visual aesthetic. How Lucas designed the landing page and launch video for Cora by rooting it in the product’s philosophy: turning the inbox from a source of chaos into something that feels calm, thoughtful—like stepping into spring.
The future of internet interfaces. Lucas believes the future of digital interfaces will be curated with the same care as a film set or ad campaign, where every detail is chosen with intention.
Lucas also walks us through how he created the headline image for Every’s consulting page—a human and robotic hand fist-bumping—using Midjourney to iterate from rough prompt to polished visual.
This is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of design and making the internet a little more beautiful every day.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:01:41
How AI changed the course of Lucas’s career: 00:04:02
Why Every’s aesthetic feels both familiar and fresh: 00:08:00
Why Lucas thinks minimalism is overrated: 00:14:53
Art direction matters more than ever in the age of AI: 00:20:38
How to reimagine what a website can be with AI: 00:23:42
Lucas’s process in Midjourney to generate cover images: 00:33:08
Midjourney v. image generation in ChatGPT: 00:42:30
Behind the scenes of Cora’s design language: 00:49:07
How AI is rewriting the role of a designer: 00:59:18
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Lucas Crespo: @lucas__crespo
The pieces Lucas has written for Every: “When An AI Tool Finally Gets You”, “A Definitive Guide to Using Midjourney”
Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: “The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy”
This episode is sponsored by Vanta. Achieving SOC 2 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with your customers—but it can cost you real time and money. Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving you up to 90% of associated costs—and Every listeners can get $1,000 off of Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/every.
As our creative lead, Lucas uses tools like native image gen in ChatGPT and Midjourney to generate the cover images you see every day. He also designs the interfaces for our products—Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle—and makes everything on our site feel as thoughtful and delightful as possible.
It was great to have him on the show to talk about how AI is changing his design process. We get into:
Lucas also walks us through how he created the headline image for Every’s consulting page—a human and robotic hand fist-bumping—using Midjourney to iterate from rough prompt to polished visual.
This is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of design and making the internet a little more beautiful every day.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
AI forces us to reckon with what makes us human—a question caught between science and spirituality that MIT’s Dr. Alan Lightman is uniquely placed to explore.
Dr. Lightman is a physicist, bestselling novelist, and professor of the practice of humanities at MIT. As one of the first at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities, he’s at ease walking the line between the two disciplines.
I loved Dr. Lightman’s book Einstein’s Dreams, so I was psyched to have him on the show. We spent an hour talking about:
Dr. Lightman also recently published a new book called The Miraculous From the Material, a collection of essays that combine scientific explanations of natural phenomena with his personal reflections on them. It has tons of striking pictures that you should check out.
This is a must watch for anyone interested in science, spirituality, and what it means to be human in the age of AI.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Walt Whitman’s poem: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Our sponsor for this episode is Microsoft. Want seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to https://aka.ms/every to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today.
AI forces us to reckon with what makes us human—a question caught between science and spirituality that MIT’s Dr. Alan Lightman is uniquely placed to explore.
Dr. Lightman is a physicist, bestselling novelist, and professor of the practice of humanities at MIT. As one of the first at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities, he’s at ease walking the line between the two disciplines.
I loved Dr. Lightman’s book Einstein’s Dreams, so I was psyched to have him on the show. We spent an hour talking about:
Being a “spiritual materialist”: Dr. Lightman’s philosophy that knowing the scientific explanation for natural phenomena—like spiderwebs and lightning bolts—deepens our experience and feeling of wonder.
The nature of consciousness: He believes that consciousness is a subjective experience emerging from the tangible activity of billions of neurons firing in our brains.
AI isn’t conscious, even though it might appear to be: AI might display manifestations of consciousness—like the ability to plan for the future—but whether it has an inner experience in the truest sense is a fundamentally different question.
Challenge your conceptions of what “natural” means: Dr. Lightman argues that since humans evolved through natural selection, everything our brains create—from eyeglasses and hearing aids to AI—can be considered “natural” as they are inevitable consequences of our naturally evolved intelligence
AI that can do more than just data retrieval: Modern neural networks begin to approximate something resembling genuine thinking because the “digital neurons” process information in complex, non-linear ways.
Evolution that blurs the lines between biology and technology: Dr. Lightman argues we’re driving our own evolution toward the “homo techno,” hybrid beings that merge human and machine; early examples include brain implants that enable paralyzed individuals to control robotic limbs.
Dr. Lightman also recently published a new book called The Miraculous From the Material, a collection of essays that combine scientific explanations of natural phenomena with his personal reflections on them. It has tons of striking pictures that you should check out.
This is a must watch for anyone interested in science, spirituality, and what it means to be human in the age of AI.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:01:18
Science can deepen your sense of the spiritual: 00:02:36
The nature of consciousness: 00:11:31
AI might appear to be conscious, but it isn’t: 00:13:11
Why AI can be considered to be “natural”: 00:19:50
AI shifts the focus of science from explanations to predictions: 00:30:40
How modern neural networks simulate thinking: 00:33:48
Lightman’s vision for how humans and machines will merge: 00:39:38
Does AI know more about love than you?: 00:43:11
How technology is accelerating the pace of our lives: 00:49:18
Links to resources mentioned:
Alan Lightman: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/
Lightman’s books: The Miraculous From the Material, Einstein's Dreams
His documentary: Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science
Walt Whitman’s poem: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
Jonny Miller uploaded his entire life to ChatGPT to use it as the ultimate AI coach.
He created what he calls a Codex Vitae—with core personality traits, values, goals, burnout signals and more to load into ChatGPT. It hyper-customizes his responses, to help him access deep meditation states, create custom supplementation plans, and do deep research on areas of brain and body that he finds interesting.
Jonny runs a course on nervous system mastery, hosts a podcast, coaches founders and CEOs, and is building a wellness app—all using AI. As a long-time friend and writer for @every, I was psyched to have Jonny on AI & I to talk about how LLMs are expanding the breadth and depth of what he can do. We get into:
This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI for personal development, coaching, or to build systems that can understand you.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Jonny Miller uploaded his entire life to ChatGPT to use it as the ultimate AI coach.
He created what he calls a Codex Vitae—with core personality traits, values, goals, burnout signals and more to load into ChatGPT. It hyper-customizes his responses, to help him access deep meditation states, create custom supplementation plans, and do deep research on areas of brain and body that he finds interesting.
Jonny runs a course on nervous system mastery, hosts a podcast, coaches founders and CEOs, and is building a wellness app—all using AI. As a long-time friend and writer for @every, I was psyched to have Jonny on AI & I to talk about how LLMs are expanding the breadth and depth of what he can do. We get into:
Energy as your greatest asset: Jonny’s philosophy around pursuing a non-traditional path—like us at Every—by fiercely protecting his energy and optimizing for “aliveness” instead of higher revenue figures.
ChatGPT projects for everything: His use of projects in @ChatGPTapp to organize different areas of his life; for example, he uploads his meditation journal to a Jhana project and asks it for advice when he’s struggling with the practice on a particular day.
Deep research in action: How he uses @OpenAI’s deep research to tackle practical questions about moving his family to Costa Rica, hilariously esoteric ones about whether there’s a connection between Pokémon and shamanism, and everything that lies in between.
The rise of “centaur” teams: Jonny’s belief that @kevin2kelly’s prediction around “centaurs”—human + AI teams outperforming either human or AI working alone—is becoming our reality.
This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI for personal development, coaching, or to build systems that can understand you.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:01:31
Dan and Jonny’s approach to running non-traditional businesses: 00:02:18
How Jonny uses ChatGPT to deepen his meditation practice: 00:12:04
Jonny uses AI to research a theory of how trauma is stored in our bodies: 00:25:44
Dan’s theory around how AI is changing science: 00:31:28
Jonny’s method to build personalized AI coaches: 00:32:35
How Jonny used OpenAI’s deep research to plan a move to Costa Rica: 00:47:07
Dan is developing an app that can predict his OCD symptoms: 00:52:50
AI makes the idea of a “quantified self” useful: 00:55:42
The future of human-AI coaching teams: 00:58:28
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Jonny Miller: @jonnym1ller
The nervous system mastery bootcamp: https://www.nsmastery.com/
His podcast: Curious Humans with Jonny Miller
The nervous system regulation mobile app: Stateshift
Jonny’s method to build your AI coach: http://BuildyourAIcoach.com
More about Jhana: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/
Buster Benson’s Codex Vitate: https://2019.busterbenson.com/beliefs/
The pieces Jonny has written for Every: “The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System,” “The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional,” “How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt,” “The Art and Science of Interoception”
I interviewed the Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy on AI & I.
We spent an hour talking about his vision for AI in government, economic development, and the regulatory challenges ahead. His approach is refreshingly pragmatic:
Governor Phil Murphy is the first governor I’ve ever had on the show and I was honored he took the time to come on. I was also especially excited to do this because I grew up in New Jersey! This is a must watch for anyone interested in the intersection of AI and policy.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
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