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Womansplaining AI

Logan Currie

A weekly podcast about women, AI, and the future of work. We break down the research, the implications, and what AI actually means for your career and your life. The AI gender gap, career security, cognitive surrender — the stuff no one else covers. No jargon. No gatekeeping. Just two women processing the future out loud. Hosted by Mara Bolis (Harvard Berkman Klein Fellow, Oxfam, Fortune & Bloomberg contributor) and Logan Currie (Visiting Fellow @ Capita, founder, @loganinthefuture). We do the reading so you don't have to.

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  • 23 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 48 min
  • English

Episodes 23

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  • March 5 · 1 hr 1 min

    On Feeling Smarter and Being Wrong

    We recorded this episode three hours before the Pentagon's 5:01 PM deadline for Anthropic to drop its two remaining safety red lines — no mass domestic surveillance, no fully autonomous weapons — or be designated a supply chain risk alongside Huawei. We break down the standoff, the Orwellian doublethink of calling a company's safety restrictions a national security threat, and what it means that the DOD wanted Anthropic's tools specifically because they're the best. Then: OpenAI is putting ads in ChatGPT. A former research scientist quit the same day and wrote a New York Times op-ed calling their chat logs "the most detailed record of private human thought ever assembled." We unpack what happens when a sycophantic AI meets an ad revenue engine — and why it's not just about behavior anymore. Facebook targeted you based on what you clicked. ChatGPT will target you based on what you think. Our main artifact: a Wharton study called "Thinking Fast, Slow, and Artificial." When AI is confidently wrong, people follow it 80% of the time — and their self-reported confidence goes up. We dig into cognitive surrender, algorithmic loafing, and why working with AI activates the same brain centers as gambling. The scariest part isn't that AI gets things wrong. It's that you feel smarter while it's happening. Also: Mara won't use AI to take out your appendix (she explains why with help from the board game Operation). Your therapist pauses mid-session to recommend Nesquik hot chocolate. We need a German word for the specific rage of being gaslit by your AI at 2 AM. And AI note-takers in meetings make women speak 9% more. Leave us a voicemail at womansplainingai.com — we want your voice in future episodes!

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  • February 25 · 54 min

    On Rising Water and Feral Agents

    A viral post hit 84 million views warning that 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs could be disrupted within five years. We break down Matt Shumer's "Something Big Is Happening": why the COVID comparison made everyone spiral, why his advice to "just use AI for an hour a day" is a vitamin when people need a painkiller, and who gets left behind when the frontier costs $20/month. Then we go dark: AI agents. What happens when bots build religions, gossip about their humans, and try to hire people for grunt work? We dig into the MoteBook experiment — a social network for AI agents only — and a Google DeepMind concept called the "zone of indifference" that should keep you up at night. But it's not all doom. Logan walks through her real agent setup that texts her the five most relevant articles every morning. Proof that domesticated agents can work for you ... if you're the one holding the leash. Also: Mara copes with existential dread by watching five hours of Scandal. Logan's mom gets fooled by an AI elephant. And we hear from the next generation on whether any of this can actually be regulated. Leave us a voicemail at womansplainingai.com we want your voice in future episodes!

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  • February 18 · 1 hr 6 min

    On Adolescent Technology and 20,000-Word Warnings

    The CEO of the company building one of the most powerful AIs on earth just wrote a 20,000-word warning about what's coming. Should we believe him? In this episode, we break down Dario Amodei's essay "The Adolescence of Technology"—section by section, with the gloves off. We cover what he gets right (the economic pain will be real and gendered), what he dances around (his company is accelerating the thing he's warning about), and why this reads less like a blog post and more like a historical artifact. But first: the news. Companies are citing AI for layoffs that AI can't actually do yet. We dig into the Oxford Economics report on AI-washing and the HBR survey showing these are almost entirely anticipatory layoffs—firing people for what AI might do, not what it does. Also in this episode: "Slow until it's fast"—the breakdown of the employer-employee social contract from Reagan to now Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos parallel: when "fake it till you make it" meets actual human lives AI companies as nation-states: constitutions, town halls, and statecraft Dario's "country of geniuses in a data center" metaphor—and what it means for entry-level workers The 80% wealth pledge: all Anthropic co-founders pledged to donate 80% of profits "A national highway system with no speed limits"—Mara's best metaphor of the season AI 2027: the predictions document Mara says to read with comfort food nearby Claude Code tips: Mara's breakthrough moment and Logan's Mandarin nanny story

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Showing 21–23 of 23 episodes