Bots, Feeds, and Kids

Summary

Paul and Rich tackle two subjects in this episode. First, Rich shares his experience returning to RSS feeds to stay on top of tech news — only to discover that virtually every story in his 600-article feed is about AI. They discuss how AI has sucked up all the oxygen in the tech room, with even new programming languages and hardware launches being overshadowed by AI narratives. They debate whether the AI bubble will pop or gently deflate, with Rich arguing that the real world’s “collective muscle memory” eventually forces any disruptive technology to settle back to reality.

In the second half, they pivot to a New York Times op-ed about raising children in an era of pervasive AI. The article by Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop cites an MIT study showing that kids who used ChatGPT to write essays not only produced worse work but also failed to develop critical cognitive faculties like organizing, structuring, and prioritizing. The hosts emphasize that AI is now embedded in nearly every app kids use — Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google search — making it impossible to simply block access. They conclude with practical advice: learn about these tools together with your kids, demystify how LLMs work (they’re stringing words together, not thinking), and let kids experiment with making the AI do obviously wrong things so they can see it’s not magic.

Highlights

”If I Google Local Gyms, That’s Different Than Working Out”

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“If I Google local gyms, that’s different than working out. Right. Like if I Google — anyway, keep going.” — Rich Zottoli, 28:00

”The Real World Spoils the Party”

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“As they walked them through all the shitty paperwork involved in trying to get a mortgage, it was clear that the real world had spoiled the party. All that disruption that was supposed to happen fell down immediately. You call it plateauing. I call it reality.” — Rich Zottoli, 14:00

”One Person Created a Web Server That Runs on a Vape Pen”

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“One person did create a web server that runs on a vape pen. That was good. That actually brought me back. I was like, okay, we’re still alive.” — Paul Ford, 10:18

”AI Is Embedded in Normal Apps”

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“If you think your kid can’t do their homework with AI because you block the other stuff, if they have WhatsApp, they can use AI. It’s in Google searches. It’s kind of embedded itself everywhere.” — Rich Zottoli, 25:00

”Get Them to Do the Most Corrupt Possible Thing with an LLM”

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“Get the kids to do the most corrupt possible thing in a constrained environment with an LLM. Get them to make a really evil bullying LLM. Give them the freedom to be bad with these things so they can see how easily the technologies can be pushed in a direction.” — Paul Ford, 34:00

Key Points

• RSS revival (1:10) - Rich returned to RSS two years ago to escape New York Times doom-scrolling; uses an app called Reeder on Mac
• Feedly recommendation (2:20) - Paul recommends Feedly as a web-based RSS aggregator with an excellent directory for topic discovery
• Aboard product pitch (4:20) - Aboard is a platform that helps quickly build software with AI; “not vibe coding” but does all the hard work around defining and designing software
• iPhone 17 and Samsung Fold 7 (6:00) - Apple launched a thinner iPhone 17; Samsung’s Fold 7 is impressive but Rich doesn’t really care about folding phones
• Quantum computing stalled (8:00) - Quantum computing has proven out but now faces the hard work of replication and reliability; the hype industry can’t make it legible
• AI is the only story (9:00) - 85% of Rich’s 600-article tech feed is AI; there’s nothing else on the horizon
• Gen Z programming language (18:00) - Someone had Claude create a full programming language using Gen Z slang — it has a compiler and is open source
• It’s obviously a bubble (11:00) - Rich declares AI is a bubble; valuations across startups are wild, but it will settle whether through crash or deflation
• Internet time is 4.5x faster (11:40) - Rich’s diner anecdote from the dot-com era about a guy behind him explaining “internet time”
• Crypto vs. mortgage reality (14:00) - A VC tried to disrupt mortgages with blockchain but the real world’s paperwork and process killed the dream immediately
• West Virginia gun database (15:40) - Gun ownership records kept on index cards by design to prevent digitization — could be one Postgres database
• West Coast disruption religion (16:30) - Paul: “It’s a good religion, creates immense value. But you have to keep it away from real culture or you get stuff like DOGE”
• MIT study on kids and AI (28:00) - Three groups: use ChatGPT freely, write first then use AI to check, no AI. Second and third groups performed similarly; first group showed no cognitive growth
• 20% of schools have AI policies (23:00) - Most schools haven’t caught up; Yondr pouches for phones are spreading
• AI in every app (25:00) - Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Google Search all have AI embedded; you can’t block it without going offline
• Peanut butter sandwich lesson (36:00) - Paul’s fourth-grade teacher used a peanut butter sandwich to teach how computers work — “Tell me how to make one” and followed instructions literally

Mentions

Companies

• Aboard (4:20) - Software generation platform; hosts’ company
• Apple (6:00) - Launched iPhone 17; no longer does live events
• Samsung (7:00) - Fold 7 praised as impressive and thin
• OpenAI (9:30) - Releasing things constantly; board said AGI may not be happening
• Anthropic (13:00) - Mentioned as one of the disruptor AI companies
• Nvidia (9:00) - Lots of China-Nvidia news in tech feeds
• Snapchat (25:00) - Has an excellent AI capability built in
• Meta (25:00) - Put AI into Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp
• Brookings Institution (22:00) - Rebecca Winthrop is director of Center for Universal Education there

Products & Technologies

• RSS (1:10) - Really Simple Syndication; Rich’s tool for managing news consumption
• Reeder (1:40) - Mac RSS reader that syncs via iCloud
• Feedly (2:20) - Web-based RSS aggregator with directory
• Yondr pouches (24:00) - Magnetic phone-locking pouches used in schools
• ChatGPT (28:00) - Used in MIT study on kids and writing; embedded in various apps

People

• Jenny Anderson (22:00) - Journalist who reports on the science of learning; co-author of the Times op-ed
• Rebecca Winthrop (22:00) - Director of Center for Universal Education at Brookings; co-author of the op-ed

Surprising Quotes

“It’s obviously a bubble. The valuations are kind of wild. Whether it’s a crash or just a deflation, I don’t know.” — Rich Zottoli, 11:00

“The West Coast fantasy is almost a religion. Disruption and so on. It’s a good religion, creates immense value. But you have to keep it away from real culture or you get stuff like DOGE.” — Paul Ford, 16:30

“It is not fair to ask a 25-year-old with a teaching degree to compete with Apple all day long.” — Paul Ford, 23:30

“Writing isn’t about writing words. The faculties you’re cultivating by learning to write are not just about assembling information into sentences. It’s about other capabilities that are useful cognitively in life.” — Rich Zottoli, 29:00

“Kids don’t like to be fooled. They get angry. They don’t like to be hoodwinked. They actually get annoyed about it. They just can’t tell they’re being hoodwinked.” — Rich Zottoli, 35:00

Transcript

0:00 Hi, I’m Paul Ford. And I’m Rich Zottoli. And this is the Aboard podcast. The podcast about how AI is changing the world of software. And today, Richard, we have two subjects. The first one is about — wait, let me guess, folding phones? Well, that’s the thing. I tried to — I want to talk about the news in the tech industry that isn’t about AI. Oh, okay. I have bad news. And then you read an article about how to get ready for AI with your children. Yes. And so we’ll talk about what you learned from that.

1:10 About two years ago, I said to myself, “The world is a little bit wackadoodle.” And I need to not be scrolling and checking the New York Times homepage all the time. So I went back to a technology called RSS, which is for site syndication, meaning it grabs a bunch of news and just shows you the headlines. You can subscribe to news sources. It could be a blog, anything. It’s sort of an artifact of the old web, but it still is out there. Most YouTube channels have RSS feeds. A lot of the piping on the internet has RSS feeds.

2:20 But you know what you can’t really track easily with RSS? Social. Social is its own world. So it got me back into news. There’s a tool called Reeder. On the Mac it runs and if you follow what it tells you, it will put all your stuff on your iCloud drive so you have one consolidated feed on all your computers and phones. If you want to use a web-based RSS aggregator, Feedly is excellent. It has an excellent directory. So if you’re interested in headphones, it’ll suggest sources.

4:20 What do we do all day? What technology are we working with? AI. Our product is a platform that helps you quickly and reliably build software with the help of AI. And it’s not vibe coding. It does all the other hard work around defining software, designing software, and then eventually building it. Check it out at aboard.com.

5:00 If you’ve been kind of like, what are Paul and Rich up to? I would keep an eye on us right now. We’ve figured some really interesting stuff out. Our demos are getting weird. There are moments the last time I looked at a demo of our product, I definitely felt this sense of like, wow, the elevator’s going down real fast. It feels like I discovered a product and I’m like, whoa, this is different, but it’s our product.

6:00 Counter to all of this, I’m like, man, we got to actually remember that there is a world outside of AI and technology. So I spent the weekend gathering news stories about what else is going on in tech. What is the most exciting thing going on in mobile right now? Apple launched their iPhone 17, which is thinner and smarter and faster. There’s new colors. They don’t even do live anymore. They’re just like, you will consume three hours of prefilmed content.

7:00 Next year your phone is going to fold into itself. I see folding phones all over the place. Samsung kind of hit it out of the park with the new Fold 7. I held it at a kiosk in Union Square. It is striking, so thin and impressive. But do you really care? No. No, I don’t need to fold my phone open and watch that dumb video in a proper form factor.

8:00 Quantum computing. Every yeah, it’s out there, but it’s the same kind of narrative. They have to go to work now. They found the breakthrough, proven it out, and now they have to figure out how to make it replicable and reliable. They can’t even hype it — it’s the biggest hype industry on earth and they can’t make quantum legible to anybody.

9:00 If you go through my technology feed, it has 600 articles in it. A lot of data privacy leaks, AirPods 3 reviews, China and Nvidia which is AI-adjacent, and then just AI. Money, money, money, China, China, China, and then the rest is AI. Somebody made Animal Crossing where all the townspeople talk with AI bots. That’s fun. And OpenAI is releasing things. It’s a little sameness. The tech industry is overwhelmed with AI stuff.

10:18 There’s kind of nothing else on the horizon. That’s interesting. It’s this or nothing. One person did create a web server that runs on a vape pen. That was good. That actually brought me back. I was like, okay, we’re still alive. But that’s not news, that’s a cool hacker story.

11:00 On one side I’ve got OpenAI and everybody saying AGI may not be happening, could be a bubble. And over here, you and me going like, wow, I’m seeing things come out of this technology because we figured out ways to actually use it. It’s jet fuel and now we can fly our plane a little faster. It’s incremental but incremental in pretty big steps. It’s obviously a bubble. The valuations across a lot of startups are kind of wild.

11:40 Every so often a technology lands and when it first lands, a threat is put in place: everything you thought works a certain way is about to get turned upside down. When I was 21, I went to a diner and had my first internet. I heard the guy behind me tell his friend, “You got to understand, man. Internet time isn’t like regular time. Internet time is at least 4.5 times faster.” That’s so unimpressive. I was in Jersey City eating crumbly Napoleon pastries. Never get cream pastries in a diner.

13:00 When a disruptive tech lands, the disruptors — companies like OpenAI and Anthropic — there is this insinuation that they are about to grab everything. And there’s a classic rule about markets: fear and greed. This hits both. Don’t confuse this with me saying this was all a sham because it’s not. It will disrupt a lot of things. But the world is deeply, deeply embedded in how it works currently.

14:00 I want to use an example from crypto. One of the major VCs got on a call with someone who wanted to disrupt mortgage applications with blockchain. As they walked them through all the shitty paperwork involved in trying to get a mortgage, it was clear that the real world had spoiled the party. The world has this massive collective muscle memory around how it works currently. AI slams into that wall. You call it plateauing. I call it reality.

15:40 Did you ever read the article about the gun database in West Virginia? The gun database is essentially index cards because they won’t let it be digitized. Because guns in America. The amount of friction to trace a gun is months and months. It’s absolutely by design. This could be one Postgres database working hard.

16:30 The West Coast fantasy is almost a religion. Disruption and so on. It’s a good religion, creates immense value very quickly. But you have to actually keep it away from real culture or you get stuff like DOGE. You can’t actually put it close to the beating heart of things.

18:00 85% of my feeds are AI. Even exciting things like someone created a programming language that uses all Gen Z slang — instead of “package” it says “vine.” They had Claude create it top to bottom. It has a compiler. But you see what happened is that a boring story I used to find exciting about what’s new in Python gets immediately subsumed by somebody doing something incredibly novel with a new tool.

22:00 Let’s transition. Parents are having a hard enough time getting ahead of phones and social media and then AI shows up. The article is called “Parents, Your Job Has Changed in the AI Era.” It’s by Jenny Anderson, a journalist who reports on the science of learning, and Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.

23:00 Parents rely on schools for structure and policy. The first thing that hit me was schools don’t know what the hell is going on. Only 20% of schools have AI policies today. It is not fair to ask a 25-year-old with a teaching degree to compete with Apple all day long. Put the phone away, and I think that’s happening. Both my kids’ schools are using Yondr pouches.

25:00 One thing parents should know: AI is embedded in normal apps. If you are using Snapchat, there’s an excellent AI capability inside of it. Meta has put it into Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp. If you think your kid can’t do their homework with AI because you block the other stuff, if they have WhatsApp, they can use AI. It’s in Google searches. Every child from now to forever will be experiencing LLM-based content.

28:00 They cite an MIT study where they put kids into three groups. One could use ChatGPT freely, another had to write first then use AI to check, and the last couldn’t use AI. The second and third cohorts were pretty close. The kids that used ChatGPT straight out — the work wasn’t good, their cognitive abilities weren’t growing. If I Google local gyms, that’s different than working out.

29:00 Writing is about organizing. It’s about structure. The faculties you’re cultivating by learning to write are not just about assembling information into sentences. It’s about other capabilities that are useful cognitively in life — organizing your bills, thinking through problems, prioritizing. It was worse than just producing bad writers. These are basic faculties you need in life.

31:00 I feel bad because you and I are technologists and we struggle with these devices. And we’re late. These phones are in our pockets. They’re wickedly powerful. For young kids, they don’t view it as cheating. The parents who have three-year-olds — most of them have just been fed a diet of Facebook glurge. They believe very strongly in clout, see influencers as the apex of culture. This idea that you have to create an outline and figure out where you’re going is like a liberal arts idea that is no longer relevant to most humans.

33:00 You should go read the article. Learning together is a really fun thing. I love learning stuff with my kids. It’s okay — you don’t have to have all the answers. Say “Hey, this is dangerous stuff. We’re going to learn about how these tools work together.” One of the best things people can do is understand how these tools work so you can demystify them. It’s not a genius robot. It’s actually stringing words together.

34:00 What I would do is get the kids to do the most corrupt possible thing in a constrained environment with an LLM. Get them to make a really evil bullying LLM. Give them the freedom to be bad with these things so they can see how easily the technologies can be pushed in a direction. If they have a cat they love, have it write an article about how that’s the worst cat ever.

36:00 You know how I learned about computers? Fourth grade. The teacher got up and they had bread and peanut butter. They said, “I am a computer. You give me instructions on making a peanut butter sandwich.” Kids would say “Take the peanut butter out of the jar” and he would just reach in with his hand. It got the point across that machines were just machines.

37:30 Right now, the magician is still blowing us away. It can be an evil magician. You got to watch out. Check out aboard.com, which is a really positive and proactive use of this technology. It adds a lot of guardrails to LLMs to help you build software really quickly. Deep down, if there’s a theme to this, I really care about tech and tech’s ability to empower. It’s what changed my life and I want more people to have access to that.