What could an 1891 papal encyclical possibly teach us about the impending wave of autonomous, "Agentic" Artificial Intelligence?

In this episode, we uncover the prophetic foresight of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark document, Rerum Novarum ("Of New Things"), and apply its foundational defense of human dignity to today's rapid shift from simple AI chatbots to autonomous AI agents. During the First Industrial Revolution, Leo XIII fiercely condemned treating human labor as a mere commodity or a mechanical instrument for profit. Today, as we enter what the Church calls a "cognitive industrial revolution," those same warnings apply to the automation of human thought and decision-making.

We explore how the unchecked rise of Agentic AI—systems capable of autonomous goal-setting and execution—threatens to fundamentally displace workers and erode human autonomy. Drawing on the Vatican’s newest 2025 doctrinal note, Antiqua et Nova, we break down the crucial difference between a machine's algorithmic "choice" and a human's moral "decision". While AI can process massive amounts of data, it lacks the spiritual soul, free will, and "wisdom of the heart" necessary for true moral agency.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The Blueprint of Rerum Novarum: How Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 warnings against unbridled capitalism and the commodification of labor perfectly map onto the modern AI arms race.
• The Threat of Deskilling: Why delegating complex tasks to Agentic AI risks "moral deskilling," reducing humans to passive consumers and eroding our capacity for critical thought and creativity.
• Choice vs. Decision: The profound philosophical distinction between an AI optimizing a statistical outcome and a human making a conscious, ethical decision.
• The Imago Dei & Technology: Why true intelligence requires embodied human experience, and why the Church insists AI must remain a tool to augment human flourishing, not replace it.
• Algor-ethics & Global Governance: How modern Catholic Social Teaching, championed by Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, is fighting for "human-in-the-loop" safeguards and universal AI regulations to protect the vulnerable.

Tune in to discover why preserving our humanity in the age of Agentic AI requires us to look back at the timeless wisdom of 1891, ensuring that technological progress serves the human person, rather than turning us into slaves of our own creations.

Keywords: Agentic AI, Artificial General Intelligence, Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII, Catholic Social Teaching, AI Ethics, Antiqua et Nova, Future of Work, Algor-ethics, Human Dignity, AI Job Displacement, Theology of Technology.

Do you remember the eerie calm of February 2020, just weeks before a global pandemic stopped the world?. According to tech CEO Matt Shumer, we are experiencing that exact same false sense of normalcy right now with Artificial Intelligence. The "virus" has already reached the shore, and most people are about to be blindsided.

In this episode, we dismantle the comforting narrative that AI is just a basic tool meant to make us slightly more productive. Instead, we explore the rapid, under-the-radar transition from "Chatbot AI" to "Agentic AI"—systems that no longer act like simple calculators, but function like autonomous senior engineers.

With AI models now capable of completing complex, hours-long tasks end-to-end without human intervention, the window between a "cool demo" and job replacement is closing faster than anticipated. We discuss how the automation of muscle during the Industrial Revolution has evolved into the automation of thought, threatening traditionally "safe" white-collar roles like lawyers, coders, and financial analysts. AI is no longer just predicting the next word; it is displaying genuine taste, making "audible" calls, and exercising human-like judgment.

In this episode, you will learn how to survive and adapt:

• The METR Time Horizon: Why the duration of tasks AI can handle autonomously is doubling every few months, and what it means for the future of month-long projects.
• Prompting vs. Delegating: Why you must stop asking AI for simple answers and start assigning it complex missions.
• Becoming a Manager of Agents: How to pivot your career value away from doing the work yourself and toward exercising expert judgment over the work AI produces.
• Ditching Free AI: Why relying on free, year-old AI models is a major mistake in a rapidly accelerating landscape.

Don't panic, but don't ignore this cognitive revolution. Tune in to discover how to future-proof your career, rethink your relationship with technology, and ensure you aren't left behind as AI transitions from software to an autonomous workforce.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Agentic AI, Matt Shumer, Future of Work, AI Job Displacement, Automation of Thought, ChatGPT, Claude Opus, Tech Trends 2026, AI Survival Guide.

"It takes a village" is a nice sentiment, but how do you actually build one? The answer might be in how we pay for it.

Paying For Childcare With Time Not Cash dives into the social power of bartering care.When parents exchange labor instead of money, they build "social capital"—trust and relationships that cash transactions often strip away. In this episode, we discuss:

• The Trust Gap: Why 90% of parents prefer neighbors they know over expensive strangers on apps.

• The ZitaBoard: How local governance ensures that the people you swap time with are vetted by your own community.

• Reciprocity: How swapping time creates a support network that feels like "abundance" rather than a transaction. Stop hiring strangers. Start building a village.

The global babysitting market is projected to reach 44 Billion by 2030 without guaranteeing local trust, while informal co-ops lack economic liquidity.In this investor briefing, we unveil the business case for Zita Kids—the first decentralized childcare marketplace that solves the "chicken and egg" problem by leveraging existing community infrastructure (parishes and schools).

Key Investment Highlights:

• The Moat: How our "ZitaBoard" governance model (Subsidiarity) lowers Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) compared to centralized apps like UrbanSitter.

• The Revenue Model: A deep dive into our "Hybrid Tribute" system projected to generate $6 million ARR and $30M valuation by Year 5.

• The Asset: Understanding the ZitaCoin—a stablecoin pegged to labor ($5.00 = 30 mins) that creates a closed-loop economy.• The Ask: Details on our $300,000 Seed Raise via tiered "Founder Coins" offering up to 5x returns for early believers.

Smart money knows that the future of the gig economy isn't just about efficiency; it's about trust. Tune in to see how we are monetizing the village.

Description: Is it possible to build a gig-economy app that actually respects the dignity of the worker and the sanctity of the family?

Fixing Babysitting with Crypto and Clergy explores the intersection of theology, technology, and the care economy. Grounded in the principles of Rerum Novarum and Familiaris Consortio, we are building Zita Kids: a platform that applies the Catholic principle of Subsidiarity—handling problems at the most local level possible—to the universal struggle of finding a babysitter.

Tune in to hear how we are:

• Restoring Dignity: Moving away from algorithmic management to human-centered vetting by local ZitaBoards.

• Valuing Unpaid Labor: Recognizing that the "care economy" is the infrastructure of society, and incentivizing it through our Token Tribute model.

• Protecting the Vulnerable: Implementing strict liquidity rules (the 75% Rule) to prevent the exploitation common in the "economy of exclusion".

From the "ZitaJoseph" role to the "Labor Tax" for teens, this is a deep dive into building a moral marketplace.

Description: The "village" it takes to raise a child has vanished—replaced by expensive agencies, unreliable text chains, and the anxiety of handing your kids over to strangers. It’s time to rebuild it, but this time, we’re building it on the blockchain. Welcome to the audio journey of Zita Kids, a revolutionary marketplace digitizing the traditional babysitting co-op. In this podcast, we explore how we are solving the "Date Night Dilemma" by combining the efficiency of ride-sharing apps with the hyper-local trust of a neighborhood parish. Tune in as we break down:

• The Trust Gap: Why 90% of parents don’t trust current apps like Care.com or Uber for childcare.

• The ZitaCoin Economy: How a closed-loop digital currency ($5.00 = 30 minutes of care) creates liquidity that old-school barter systems lacked.

• Decentralized Governance: Meet the "ZitaBoards"—local parents and clergy who hold the keys to vetting and safety, not a faceless algorithm. From the "75% Liquidity Rule" to the "Founder Coin" crowdfunding strategy, discover how we are turning the $44 billion childcare crisis into a community-governed opportunity .The Village is back. And it’s digitized.

Episode Description:

Is the "village" officially broken? For modern parents, finding a babysitter usually means choosing between exorbitant agency fees or unreliable text threads. In this audio overview, we dive deep into the Zita Kids White Paper, a proposal to rebuild community trust through a decentralized, tokenized marketplace.

Join us as we explore how Zita Kids plans to digitize the traditional babysitting co-op. By replacing cash with ZitaCoins and corporate oversight with local ZitaBoards, this model aims to close the "trust gap" while making date nights affordable again.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The "Date Night" Dilemma: Why the $44 billion childcare market is failing families on both price and safety.
• Tokenomics 101: How the ZitaCoin creates a closed-loop economy where 1 token always equals 30 minutes of care, pegged initially at $5.00.
• The Human "Block"chain: How local ZitaBoards—composed of trusted neighbors and parish leaders—handle vetting and governance, solving the safety concerns that plague apps like Uber or Sittercity.
• The Community Franchise Model: A look at how Zita plans to scale by empowering local neighborhoods to run their own micro-economies.

Whether you are a parent desperate for a break or an investor looking for the next evolution of the gig economy, this overview breaks down how we can use technology to bring the village back.

Key Topics: #Childcare #Tokenomics #GigEconomy #ParentingTech #ZitaKids #CoOps #Marketplaces

Episode Description:

What happens when the "Big Bang" of the digital age collides with the miraculous? This audio overview explores the unlikely thematic intersection between the gritty origins of Silicon Valley and the spiritual legacy of a 17th-century mystic.

Part One: The Rebellion Journey back to 1957 Mountain View, California, to witness the dramatic mutiny that birthed the modern tech industry. We trace the story of the "Traitorous Eight"—a group of brilliant young scientists including Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore—who defected from the stifling management of Nobel laureate William Shockley. Discover how their new venture, Fairchild Semiconductor, pioneered the "planar process" and the first commercially practicable integrated circuit, sparking a revolution that allowed for the mass production of silicon chips. We examine how this single company became the "trillion-dollar startup," spawning a family tree of spin-offs known as "Fairchildren" (including Intel and AMD) that turned the Santa Clara Valley into Silicon Valley.

Part Two: The Intercession The narrative shifts to the skies—and the soul. We introduce St. Joseph of Cupertino, the "Flying Friar," revered in Catholic tradition not only for his reported levitations but as the powerful intercessor for students facing difficult examinations. Drawing from traditional novenas, we explore how the friar’s legacy of overcoming academic struggles offers a spiritual counterweight to the intense intellectual pressure cooker of the high-tech world.

Part Three: The Ultimate Test Finally, we weave these threads together through the lens of the "Hero's Journey." Just as the hero must cross a threshold into a "special world" of trials and tests, the Traitorous Eight faced the ultimate test of engineering: solving the "tyranny of numbers" to miniaturize electronics. Join us for a story about those who defied gravity—whether through the miracle of flight or the invention of the silicon chip that lifted humanity into the information age.