Episodes

  • Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt

    Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt
    Mar 21 2026
    In this podcast, I chat with two professors — Nupoor Ranade (Carnegie Mellon) and Jeremy Merritt (James Madison University) — about how AI is reshaping the technical writing profession from the academic side. We discuss dropping enrollments, misconceptions about what tech writers do, historical parallels to past disruptions, agentic AI and organizational restructuring, the cyborg model of human-machine collaboration, and how academics and practitioners can bridge the divide to solve real problems together.
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • AI Book Club recording of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'

    AI Book Club recording of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'
    Mar 17 2026
    This is a recording of our AI Book Club discussion of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Will Kill Us All by Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky, held March 15, 2026. Our discussion touches on a variety of topics, including whether the book's use of parables strengthens or weakens its argument, the question of whether AI can develop genuine intentions, the competitive dynamics that prevent any single company from pumping the brakes, the limits of recursive self-improvement, and what ordinary people should make of wildly conflicting predictions from leading AI thinkers. This post also includes discussion questions,...
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    56 mins
  • Podcast: Doc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge -- with Manny Silva

    Podcast: Doc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge -- with Manny Silva
    Mar 8 2026
    In this podcast, Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti (passo.uno) and I chat with Manny Silva (instructionmanuel.com), head of documentation at Skyflow and author of Docs as Tests. Manny is working on a follow-up book that incorporates AI, covering validated generation, trusted agents, and self-healing documentation.
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    1 hr
  • AI Book Club recording, notes, and transcript for Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People

    AI Book Club recording, notes, and transcript for Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People
    Feb 16 2026
    This is a recording of our AI Book Club discussion of Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams, held February 15, 2026. Our discussion touches on a variety of topics, including whether criticisms of the author's complicity are fair, the ethical dilemmas we face working in tech, whether the parallels between social media and AI hold up, the Streisand effect of Meta's attempt to suppress the book, and more. This post also includes discussion questions, key themes, and a full transcript.
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    54 mins
  • Podcast: Tech comm predictions for 2026 (Phase One)

    Podcast: Tech comm predictions for 2026 (Phase One)
    Jan 25 2026
    In this episode, Fabrizio and I discuss our predictions for tech comm in 2026, focusing on two posts: Fabrizio's My day as an augmented technical writer in 2030 and my 12 predictions for tech comm in 2026. Some of the specific topics we cover include the evolution of writers into automation engineers, the increasing necessity of systems thinking, the economic paradox where high tech valuations are contrasting with stagnant hiring, the risk of the Reverse Centaur dynamic (where humans merely approve AI output), and the growing value of authentic human connection and humanity.
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • AI Book Club recording of God, Human, Animal, Machine

    AI Book Club recording of God, Human, Animal, Machine
    Jan 24 2026
    This post provides a recording of our AI Book Club discussion of God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O'Gieblyn, held Jan 18, 2026. Our discussion touches upon a variety of parallels between religion and AI, such as the black box nature of AI and the incomprehensibility of divine will, transhumanism and resurrection, predictive algorithms and free will, and more. This post also provides discussion questions, a transcript, and other resources.
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    56 mins
  • Podcast: Writing as telepathy: AI tools, automation, and an intentionally offline life -- conversation with CT Smith

    Podcast: Writing as telepathy: AI tools, automation, and an intentionally offline life -- conversation with CT Smith
    Jan 4 2026
    In this episode, Fabrizio (passo.uno) and I talk with CT Smith, who writes on a blog at docsgoblin.com and works as a documentation lead for Payabli. Our conversation covers how CT uses AI tools like Claude in her documentation workflow, why she builds tooling that doesn't depend on AI, her many doc-related projects and experiments, and how she balances a tech writing career with an intentionally offline life in rural Tennessee. We also get into reading habits, the fear of skill atrophy from AI reliance, and where the tech writer role might be headed.
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • AI Book Club recording, notes, and transcript for Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence

    AI Book Club recording, notes, and transcript for Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence
    Dec 17 2025
    This is a recording of our AI Book Club discussion of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick, held Dec 14, 2025. Our discussion touches upon a variety of topics, including the educator's lens, cautious optimism, the jagged frontier, personas, pedagogy, takeaways, and more. This post also provides discussion questions, a transcript, and terms and definitions from the book.
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    57 mins