A Midsummer Day’s Hallucination
Sometimes, you have to pivot to find your market. Take Elizabeth Holmes. She started out with Walgreens, but when that didn’t work out, she pivoted to FPC Bryan (look it up — we’ll give you a hint: it’s not a house of worship). Rumor has it that her next pivot will be a one-second test for BS in start-up pitches. Good luck with that.
The not-so-high-and-mighty Failure – the Podcast has had a few pivots of its own. What was it last time? “Innovation Blab”? And, before that? “The Five Minute Update.” Dare we ask, still earlier? Yep, “Failure – the Podcast.” If you pivot enough times, you’ll eventually come back to where you started. We can only hope Walgreens will be that wiser when Liz comes back from the Big House (no, not the Home of the Wolverines).
Anyway, back to Pivot … er, Failure … the Podcast. Word has it that AI is hot these days. And, with two episodes under our belt, who needs Lex Fridman, Kevin Roose, and Kara Swisher? We prefer Steve Jobs’ tortoise-like approach: go slow, learn from the front-runners, and then do it right. Like the Apple Newton.
Blathering aside, today’s guest is Seth Earley, the founder of — guess what? — Earley Information Science, a consulting firm specializing in data ontologies and knowledge architecture. He’s also famous for the phrase “There is no AI without IA.” Don’t know what that means? Listen to today’s episode and maybe you’ll learn. (Spoiler alert: not likely).
Seth’s approach to organizing content around a single source of truth and utilizing multiple AI systems to cross-verify information is impressive. But is the time saved by AI worth the time spent setting it up? Seth seems to believe so, but his AI agents’ passive-aggressive behavior raises doubts.
These days, the kids have a word for it: “LARPing.” That’s live-action role-playing. Mark wonders if that’s what we’re all doing with our new AI tools. Seth and I are curious to know if Mark was paying attention during the recording session or if the so-called emergency text he received two minutes in caused him to lose focus. (We later discovered that Pinocchio’s in Harvard Square was buzzing to say his cheese pizza was ready.)
There are better podcasts exploring AI. Unfortunately, you’ve stumbled into this one. So, sit back, brace yourself, and do your best to endure an unpleasant hour or so of listening to two half-wits and one full-wit discussing the buzzword of 2026. We might have thrown in a political jab or two, considering the upcoming midterms, but decided it was probably best not to, if Mark is to keep his job at IBM (which, not surprisingly, is not a sponsor of this podcast).
Oh, and now that you’ve asked, what does any of this have to do with the title of today’s episode? Not much.
