Summary

A bus ad in San Francisco recently declared that "agents are humans too." Eric and John start there, and discuss Anthropic's new usage policy prohibiting users from being mean to AI. The most important question is why we need to ask the question about agents being human.

The short answer is no, agents aren't human. But AI is now powerful enough that the question changes how we work. Eric and John talk through real examples, from building software prototypes out of client conversations to reading, writing and data analysis, and land on a practical idea: pick the things you won't use AI for, because some of the effort is what shapes you.

In this episode

• 00:52: Are agents human? (Spoiler: no.)
• 04:19: Anthropic's policy and why AI feels so human
• 08:27: Sci-fi expectations vs. what AI can actually do
• 13:38: Building software prototypes from client conversations
• 15:53: Deciding when (and when not) to use AI
• 18:45: Ethan Mollick and the work behind good writing
• 22:19: Why team chemistry still matters
• 25:24: Don't outsource your thinking

Mentioned

• Eric and John discuss Anthropic's 2026 Usage Policy update and what it says about how people treat AI agents.
• Ethan Mollick's Co-Existence: The Next Phase of AI comes up in a conversation about which parts of writing you should still do yourself, alongside his earlier book, Co-Intelligence.