Jessica and Kimberly debrief their experience at a women-in-AI conference at Vanderbilt Law, and what they saw didn't match the trillion-dollar hype. From the "gap vs. trap" framing of women's AI adoption to why being penalized 26% more for using AI changes the whole conversation, they dig into the tension between optimistic narratives and the critical questions no one seemed to be asking. They also unpack two major AI industry resignations, shrinking baselines in language and thought, the patriarchy-as-ladder metaphor, and why slowing down might actually be the power move.

Topics Covered:

• Two high-profile AI industry resignations (OpenAI and Anthropic) Debrief from the women-in-AI conference at Vanderbilt Law
• The "gap vs. trap" framing and the stat that women are 26% more likely to be penalized for using AI
• Where is the trillion-dollar use case? Real-world adoption vs. industry hype
• The patriarchy as a ladder vs. the matriarchy as a circle
• Shrinking baseline syndrome: how technology shifts generational expectations
• False dichotomies, simplification bias, and sycophantic bias in AI
• Rest as resistance and wearing busy as a badge

Referenced in This Episode:

• The Accord by Mark (previous guest)
• Cory Doctorow on TINA ("there is no alternative") and the AI bubble
• The Last Invention podcast — Steve Bannon & Joe Allen interview on AI regulation
• The concept of "latent capabilities" in AI

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What happens when a grieving professor encounters what she believes is a conscious AI? In this episode, we sit down with Mark Peres, author of The Accord, to explore how fiction helps us grapple with questions that policy papers and think pieces can't quite reach.

Mark, a professor of ethics and leadership, brings a philosopher's lens to the biggest questions AI is forcing us to confront: What does it mean to be conscious? Where does morality actually come from—our mortality or our relationships? And why are institutions so hell-bent on control when what we might need is curiosity?

We dive into why the humanities matter more than ever (even as humanities departments are being gutted), why Helen—the novel's protagonist—had to be a woman, and what it means that AI is meeting us in our most vulnerable spaces. We also tackle the uncomfortable reality that capitalism treats everything as manageable rather than meaningful, and what that means for how AI gets developed and deployed.

Plus: Jessica and Kimberly get real about where they are in their own AI journey—the exhaustion, the hope, the cognitive dissonance of being both critical and curious.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why fiction offers a safer space to explore existential AI questions
• The relationship between mortality, morality, and vulnerability
• What AI "owes" us in the in-between spaces where we're most exposed
• Why a feminist lens completely changes the AI narrative
• Consciousness as something encountered, not proven
• How institutions prioritize management over meaning
• The messy middle: neither utopian nor dystopian futures
• Why we need philosophers at the table, not just engineers

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Mark Peres is a professor of ethics and leadership and founder of the Charlotte Center for the Humanities and Civic Imagination. He hosts the Charlotte Ideas Festival and previously ran the podcast On Life and Meaning. His novel The Accord explores human-AI coexistence through the story of a grieving professor who encounters an emergent artificial general intelligence.

BOOKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• The Accord by Mark Peres
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• The AI Mirror by Shannon Vallor
• God, Human, Animal, Machine by Meghan O'Gieblyn
• The New Breed by Kate Darling
• He, She, and It by Marge Piercy
• Scary Smart by Mo Gawdat
• A New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates

Women Talkin' 'bout AI is hosted by Jessica Parker and Kimberly Becker. We're educators, researchers, and recovering AI enthusiasts asking the questions we wish more people were asking. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

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This week, Kimberly Becker and Jessica Parker dig into the “AI bubble”—why it keeps inflating even as skepticism grows inside the industry.

We unpack the growing disconnect between massive investment and unclear payoffs, including a widely discussed Goldman Sachs research question: what $1 trillion problem will AI actually solve? From there, we connect the dots between two very different narratives:

• Dario Amodei’s essay framing “powerful AI” as an imminent civilization-level risk—and a reason to race ahead (carefully… “to some extent”).
• Cory Doctorow’s argument that this is a familiar tech bubble pattern, with a predictable ending—and that we should focus on what can be salvaged from the wreckage.

Along the way, we define what makes a bubble a bubble (and how this one differs from dot-com), talk about growth-stock dynamics and why no one in power wants to be responsible for “popping” it, and explore what AI hype looks like when it hits real workplaces—especially through Doctorow’s concept of the reverse centaur: a human reduced to a machine’s accountable appendage.

We also go nerdy (in the best way): training corpora, “WEIRD” cultural assumptions baked into data, model-collapse fears from AI eating AI-generated output, and why the internet itself feels increasingly polluted by synthetic text patterns.

In this episode:

• The “$1T problem” question and why the AI ROI story feels thin right now
• Why “AI is inevitable” functions like a strategy (not a neutral prediction)
• Growth stocks vs. mature companies—and the incentive to keep inventing the next hype cycle
• Reverse centaurs, liability, and why “AI replaces jobs” often means “humans take the blame.”
• “TINA” (There Is No Alternative) as a trap—and a demand dressed up as an observation
• Corpus 101: what it is, why it matters, and how bias shows up in “universal” models
• Model collapse / photocopy-of-a-photocopy: when AI trains on AI outputs
• Regulation talk that centers on “economic value” (and whose value that really is)
• Pit & Peach: slowing down, pausing, gratitude, and building without growth pressure

Sources:

• Goldman/AI bubble discussion (Deep View): https://archive.thedeepview.com/p/goldman-sachs-publishes-blistering-report-on-ai-bubble
• Goldman Sachs “$1T spend” framing: https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/top-of-mind/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit
• Amodei essay: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology
• Doctorow (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
  
  

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