The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.

Matt Stauffer talks with Kent C. Dodds — educator, JavaScript expert, and creator of Epic Web, Epic React, and Epic AI — about what it actually looks like to use AI at the frontier of software development.

They dig into how Kent ships thousands of lines of AI-generated code without reviewing most of it, why he believes "product engineering" is the most durable skill left in the industry, and what MCP (Model Context Protocol) is and why it matters far beyond the developer world. Kent also walks through Kody, his personal AI assistant that controls his home, journals his life story, and can integrate with virtually anything.

The conversation gets real on education, the future of jobs, the role of human empathy in an AI-dominated world, and why Kent thinks the parts of our jobs AI is taking are usually the parts we hated most anyway.

• Matt Stauffer on X
• Tighten Website
• Kent’s Website
• Kent on X
• Kent on GitHub
• Epic Web
• Epic React
• Epic AI
• VS Code
• Cursor
• CodeRabbit
• Cursor Bugbot
• Practical TypeScript Course
• Justin Jackson Post
• EpicProduct.Engineer
• Community Usage from Bogdan Kharchenko
• Jesse Genet on X
• Kent C. Dodds AI Engineer Miami Talk

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Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.

The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.

In this episode, Steve Schoger, designer and partner at Tailwind Labs, shares how he’s actually using AI in his day-to-day work, including tools like Claude in his design workflow. The conversation explores how AI is changing creativity, how it affects team collaboration, and what it might mean for the future of design and development.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter - https://x.com/mattstauffer
• Tighten Website - https://tighten.com/
• Steve Schoger on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@SteveSchoger
• Steve Schoger on Twitter - https://x.com/steveschoger
• Steve’s video on X - https://x.com/steveschoger/status/2035077141050622173?s=20
• Paper - https://paper.design/
• Skogafoss Waterfall Hike - https://thephotohikes.com/skogafoss-and-the-waterfall-way-hike/

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Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.

The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.

Matt Stauffer talks with Karen Maria Alston, a 20-year communication strategist turned AI governance advocate, about why AI is impacting everyone, whether they use it or not.

They get into the real-world ways AI is already shaping daily life: deepfake photos on dating apps, AI-generated social media influencers with millions of followers, voice mimicry scams draining retirement accounts, and what it means that most Americans, including most politicians, still have no idea any of this is happening. Karen breaks down the case for voter mobilization, legislative action, and why individual abstention from AI doesn't actually change the trajectory.

The conversation also gets into identity, the social contract, and the deeper human cost of automation, including what it means to lose a job that was part of who you were, and what it looks like to be hopeful about AI without being naive about it.

• Matt Stauffer on Twitter
• Tighten Website
• Karen Maria Alston on LinkedIn
• Karen Maria Alston on Instagram
• Karen Maria Alston on Substack
• Karen Maria Alston’s Website

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Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.