Hands-On AI (Audio)

Ask a chatbot the same thing twice, and you might expect two different answers. Mikah Sargent runs one everyday request through ChatGPT five times and gets back the same basic text, two of them word for word. He explains where differences come from, what research says about why tuned chatbots can narrow the range of their answers, and why these replies left out what only he knew. Then he fills in the blanks and adds examples to show what prompt engineering really means, with four habits for getting answers you'd actually use.

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Host: Mikah Sargent

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The big AI apps now have research modes that make you wait for a report full of sources. Is the wait worth it? Mikah Sargent gives ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity the same complicated question, plus ChatGPT with regular web search as a control, and compares how long they take, where they look, what they miss, and how much cleanup each report needs. Then he checks every answer against a rebate and tax-credit answer key built from official sources.

Host: Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai

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What happens when AI stops talking and starts doing? Mikah Sargent puts Meta's Muse agent to work on simple jobs, hard ones, and a couple of weird ones: a weekly news brief, a day trip, a shopping cart that stops for his approval, a web page it builds itself, and a podcast about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. Along the way, he explains what makes an agent different from a chatbot, what Muse can and can't touch, and the settings to check before you hand any AI the keys.

Host: Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai

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Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Sponsor:
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What's actually inside an AI model? Mikah Sargent opens up the file from last week's episode and finds tokens, billions of numbers, and one surprisingly simple job: guess the next piece of text. Along the way, he shows why the same question can get a different answer every time, where all those numbers came from, and why a chatbot can sound completely sure of itself and still be wrong.

Host: Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai

Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

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Your next chatbot doesn't need the cloud. Mikah Sargent installs a free app, downloads an AI model, turns off the Wi-Fi, and keeps right on chatting, all on an ordinary computer. Along the way, he explains how to read a model listing, including what the size and "Q4" labels mean, so you can pick a model that runs well on your own machine. Then the local model goes head-to-head with a cloud assistant to see where it holds up and where it falls short.

Host: Mikah Sargent

Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai

Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.