Ep 386: Was 2025 a Great or Terrible Year for AI? (w/ Ed Zitron)

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Education, Technology, Self-improvement

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 143 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ep 386: Was 2025 a Great or Terrible Year for AI? (w/ Ed Zitron) 2025 was a year that was saturated in AI news, from Deep Seek, through claims of economic “bloodbaths,” to GPT-5, Sora, and Chatbot girlfriends. Frankly, it was exhausting. As we now look back on 2025 an interesting question arises: all in all, did this end up being a good or bad year for AI? To help me answer this question, I’m joined by hard-hitting AI commentator Ed Zitron, who's been everywhere in the media in recent months helping to make sense of the wild claims being thrown in the public’s direction. Together we go through the biggest AI stories of the year to try to make sense of what just happened. Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia INTERVIEW: Was 2025 a Great or Terrible Year for AI (w/ Ed Zitron) [3:16] Cal Reacts to Comments: Is the Internet Becoming Television? [1:58:25] Links:Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at calnewport.com/slowGet a signed copy of Cal’s “Slow Productivity” at peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/Cal's monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba?bbc.com/news/articles/c5yv5976z9poaxios.com/2025/01/23/davos-2025-ai-agentsblog.google/technology/google-deepmind/gemini-model-updates-february-2025/openai.com/index/sora/openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-4-5/ai-2027.com/fortune.com/2025/05/28/anthropic-ceo-warning-ai-job-loss/media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/usatoday.com/story/tech/2025/08/07/chat-gpt-5-release-date-open-ai/85566627007/#:~:text=GPT%2D5%20release%20date,release%20date%20for%20Part%202newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/what-if-ai-doesnt-get-much-better-than-thiswsj.com/tech/ai/ai-bubble-building-spree-55ee6128nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systemsnytimes.com/2025/10/02/technology/openai-sora-video-app.htmlanthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-5ft.com/content/064bbca0-1cb2-45ab-85f4-25fdfc318d89youtube.com/watch?v=Z_WEmjygNK0 Thanks to our Sponsors: This episode is sponsored by Better Help:betterhelp.com/deepquestionsreclaim.ai/calexpressvpn.com/deepcalderalab.com/deep Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	so much happened in the world of AI in 2025 that it can actually be hard to keep track of it all.
0:08.8	I mean, remember DeepSeek?
0:10.4	That was in 2025.
0:13.0	As was Dario Amadee saying that we were going to lose half of white collar jobs to AI as well as GPT-5's release,
0:25.9	the release of Sora, AI looking like the best investment ever, followed by AI being described as a giant bubble that was going to bring down the economy, followed by that
0:29.8	bubble being described as actually not being so bad.
0:32.7	This was also the year where Navidia CEO Jensen Wong took the stage in a conference wearing a jacket that, well, I'll be honest, looks like it came from the prop department for my Mad Max movie. Jesse, let's put this on the screen here. I mean, dude, you're a computer scientist. You were in a racer jacket. I love it. I'm here for it. What I'm trying to say is a lot happened in the world of AI in the year that
0:54.8	just ended. And the key question that I've been grappling with is, did this year end up being
1:02.8	a great year for AI or a terrible one? I would believe either answer and so much happened,
1:09.5	it could be really hard to try to keep it all straight.
1:11.7	So here's what we're going to do today.
1:12.6	We're going to try to get an answer to that query.
1:15.2	To help me in these efforts, I've invited to join me Ed Zittron.
1:19.8	I think one of the big missed stories of AI in 2025 is Zittron himself, who hosts the better offline podcast and writes the Where's Your Eds at Substack?
1:30.2	He rose to become, I think, one of the more informed than important AI commentators out there.
1:35.1	The secret to Ed's success is pretty simple.
1:37.3	He just does his homework.
1:38.9	He actually talks to sources.
1:40.4	He talks to reporters.
1:41.4	He reads earning reports.
1:42.5	He gets leaked information.
1:43.7	He talks to people within these companies. He puts together the. He reads earning reports. He gets leaked information. He talks to people
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cal Newport, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Cal Newport and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.