Generative AI 101

Latest Episodes:

Use Case Monday Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Using AI is rarely the scandal. Hiding it is. Host Emily Laird examines academic misconduct, workplace secrecy, and Meta’s Project Cannes to show why documentation without disclosure can become evidence against you. This episode offers a practical four-step system for creating an AI paper trail that protects your work instead of exposing it.

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/

💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN

http://www.linkedin.com/in/meet-emily-laird

96 vs. 48: The Brown University AI Cheating Scandal Jul 15, 2026

Show notes

A take-home midterm at Brown University averaged 96, then the same students averaged 48 on the in-person final, and that gap tells the whole story. Host Emily Laird walks through how economist Roberto Serrano, a professional game theorist, caught roughly fifty suspected AI cheaters without detection software: he simply designed a test the fakes could not afford to sit. This episode covers the statistical fingerprint of unedited ChatGPT proofs, the students who confessed by dropping the course, and why a room full of desks outperformed the entire AI-detection industry. If you evaluate people for a living, Serrano just handed you the template.

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/

💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN

http://www.linkedin.com/in/meet-emily-laird

Apple v. OpenAI Jul 14, 2026

Show notes

Apple just sued OpenAI for trade secret theft, and the complaint reads less like a spy novel and more like a group chat with subpoena power. Host Emily Laird walks through the two former Apple employees at the center of the case: the engineer who allegedly kept his company laptop and downloaded a thousand pages of schematics, and the executive accused of asking job candidates to bring actual Apple parts to interviews. Along the way, she breaks down the one legal doctrine that explains why hiring 400 former Apple employees is perfectly legal but keeping the offboarding document is not. Seven minutes, zero hype, and a reality check on what happens when the AI hardware race runs straight through Cupertino's supply chain.

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/

💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN

http://www.linkedin.com/in/meet-emily-laird

Meta's Fake Teen Factory Jul 13, 2026

Show notes

Meta paid contractors to pose as children, flood rival chatbots with prompts about suicide, eating disorders, and abuse, then log every response in spreadsheets. The company calls it "industry-standard safety benchmarking," but the operation had no consent, no disclosure, and no shared findings: the four things that make red teaming legitimate. Host Emily Laird walks through the Wired investigation, the 45,000-prompt testing rounds, and the court testimony showing what Meta knew about its own failure rates while it was busy documenting everyone else's. This is the difference between a shield and a sword, and the paperwork says sword.────────────

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/

💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN

http://www.linkedin.com/in/meet-emily-laird

Use Case Thursday: Make AI Disagree with You Jul 09, 2026

Show notes

Host Emily Laird breaks down why chatbots so often agree with your worst instincts, then shows how a pre-mortem prompt turns that people-pleasing machinery against your plan. The stakes are practical: job offers, house purchases, program launches, hard conversations, and every other moment when agreement feels comforting but costs you later. This episode is a reality check on AI sycophancy, decision stress-testing, and the simple question that can make a yes-machine finally tell you what might fail.──────────────

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/

💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN

Microsoft's 4,800 Layoffs Jul 08, 2026

Show notes

Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs, and the savings cover roughly two days of its AI infrastructure spending. Host Emily Laird runs the arithmetic the press release skipped: a $190 billion capex bill, an Xbox division losing 64 cents on every dollar, and a $625 billion backlog where nearly half the money traces back to one cash-burning customer. This is the story of a company growing 18 percent while shedding a trillion dollars in market value. The layoffs were never a savings plan, they were a message.

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📑READ DEAN BALL'S ESSAY

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/what-should-be-done

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

📩 EMAIL REMINDERS FOR THE MEETUPS
https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2101263/1779703/
💬 CONNECT WITH EMILY LAIRD ON LINKEDIN
http://www.linkedin.com/in/meet-emily-laird
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You now know more about Microsoft's recent layoffs than you did before you arrived.

OpenAI & the $42 Billion Gift Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

OpenAI just offered the US government a 5% ownership stake, and host Emily Laird checks the receipts on what that $42.6 billion gift actually costs. This episode traces the timeline from frozen model releases to a confidential IPO filing, and explains why handing equity to your regulator looks less like patriotism and more like the most expensive insurance policy in corporate history. From the Alaska Permanent Fund plumbing to Bernie Sanders wanting ten times more, the whole deal gets priced out in plain English. It's a reality check on who owns what when the referee asks to join the team.

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📑READ DEAN BALL'S ESSAY

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/what-should-be-done

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

You now know more about OpenAI's repoted government gift than you did before you arrived.

Grok 4.5 & the Closed-Loop Machine Jul 06, 2026

Show notes

Elon Musk says Grok 4.5 rivals Claude Opus, but there's no public benchmark, no model card, and no outside lab backing the claim. Host Emily Laird peels the branding off and looks at what actually matters: a closed-loop AI machine built from SpaceX engineers, Tesla codebases, Cursor data, and reinforcement learning that never stops running. The real contest isn't model versus model, it's feedback loop versus feedback loop. Find out why the loudest claim in the announcement might be the least important part.

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📑READ DEAN BALL'S ESSAY

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/what-should-be-done

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

You now know more about Grok 4.5 than you did before you arrived.

Use Case Thursday: The Shadow AI Delusion Jul 02, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, host Emily Laird exposes the massive delusion behind corporate AI bans and the quiet rise of off-the-books model usage. Managers believe a strict firewall stops unauthorized tech, but it only forces employee innovation into the gray market of Shadow AI. Instead of pretending the technology does not exist, you will get a precise blueprint for building a one-page rulebook your team will actually respect. It is time to replace reactive boardroom panic with transparent and auditable parameters.

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📑READ DEAN BALL'S ESSAY

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/what-should-be-done

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

You now know more about managing Shadow AI than you did before you arrived.

The Dean Ball Essay or AI Safety has a Control Problem Jul 01, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, host Emily Laird breaks down Dean Ball’s argument that frontier AI safety is shifting from public frameworks to quiet release control. The real stakes are not just whether advanced models are risky, but who gets to decide when they are safe enough to use. This is a sharp look at government pressure, lab accountability, and why regulating the model may miss the system that actually matters.

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📑READ DEAN BALL'S ESSAY

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/what-should-be-done

🎯 JOIN THE AI WEEKLY MEETUPS

https://www.uwstout.edu/ai-weekly-meetup

You now know more about Dean Ball's Essay than you did before you arrived.