Are we in charge of our AI tools or are they in charge of us?

Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

EPIIPLUS 1 Ltd / Azeem Azhar

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5.0 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the first episode of AI Vistas, a new series where I bring together people I trust and respect to tackle a major question collectively. Today’s question: are we in charge of our AI tools, or are they in charge of us? Joining me are Nita Farahany, distinguished professor of law and philosophy at Duke University and a leading thinker on cognitive liberty and mental privacy; Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and one of the world's most cited medical researchers; and Rohit Krishnan, engineer, former hedge fund manager, and AI builder. Moderating the conversation is Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Right now, as AI moves faster than our ability to make sense of it,
0:03.8	I don't think any single view from where any one of us stands is enough, not even mine.
0:10.1	So now we've seen a study of gastroenterologists.
0:13.6	When they turn off the AI, they're not as good.
0:16.2	And of course, there's the younger docs that are coming through who are going to be never skilled.
0:25.0	Today, should you use AI tools to make the life-threatening consequential decision?
0:26.2	Yes, you should.
0:31.2	But what is it that we as a society need to invest in such that in the long term,
0:35.5	we don't end up with humans who no longer have basic competency?
0:37.3	It's not just in Twitter, right?
0:54.7	And I think slop here is an important word because primarily what we're saying is that it has all the appearance of a fulfilling meal, but it has no calories. It's kind of empty. I call it hollowware. Writing is thinking, right? And if we de-skill our writing, we're deskilling our thinking. Oh, I'm going to push back on that one for a minute, Nick.
0:57.9	I've heard that too many times now and I think it's crap. Let me tell you why.
1:17.0	Hello, I'm Azimazar, founder of Exponential View. And over the past decade of Exponential View, I've built relationships with people at the centre of artificial intelligence.
1:21.9	The builders, the researchers, the investors, the thinkers, the doers.
1:26.0	And right now, as AI moves faster than our ability to make sense of it, I don't think any single view from where
1:28.9	any one of us stands is enough, not even mine. So today, I want to introduce AI Vistas. It's a new
1:36.9	series where I bring together people I trust and respect into a conversation around a major
1:42.7	question. Collectively, we're going to be able to see more together
1:46.4	than any one of us alone. Now, our first question comes from my own recent experience. I've committed
1:52.2	thousands of lines of code this year using AI. Three of the apps I use every day. I built myself
1:57.9	all since Christmas 2025. And a couple of days ago, I fired off a question to my AI agent before a car journey.
2:04.6	It was quite a complex question.
	...

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