u/reesefinchjh

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Wendell Wallach recently. He’s been working in AI ethics since before ChatGPT, before the hype, before most people in tech were paying attention. He wrote Moral Machines, worked alongside Stuart Russell, Yann LeCun and Daniel Kahneman. He’s not a commentator, he’s someone who has sat with these questions for decades.

What struck me most in our conversation was his argument about AGI. Not that it’s impossible or inevitable, but that it’s the wrong goal entirely. A system can be extraordinarily intelligent and have zero moral reasoning. We’re building toward capability without asking what it’s capable of deciding.

The section on accountability genuinely unsettled me. When AI causes harm, who is actually responsible? He maps out why the answer is almost always nobody in a way that’s hard to argue with.

Worth watching if you’re tired of the extremes.

Full interview: https://youtu.be/-usWHtI-cms?si=NBkwN-AmIshOXJsX

Lee Cockerell grew up with nothing. No connections, no degree, no obvious path to anything. He spent years in rooms where he felt like he didn’t belong, convinced he was going to be found out at any moment.

He ended up as VP of Operations at Walt Disney World, the largest single-site hospitality operation in the world.

The thing that stuck with me in this conversation wasn’t the career arc, impressive as it is. It was how honest he was about the internal experience of getting there. He talks about imposter syndrome not as something he overcame once and moved past, but as something he had to actively manage at every stage. His line “your brain lies to you” is simple but he unpacks it in a way that’s genuinely useful.

He also talks about the two traits he believes matter more than any qualification or background. Not motivational fluff, specific and practical.

If you’re in a phase where you feel like you’re not quite enough for what you’re trying to build, this conversation is worth your time.

Full interview: https://youtu.be/9eBTpdWHOJs?si=PzSVw\_kbNudTBJR5

Andrew Feustel was NASA’s Chief Astronaut. Three spaceflights, six spacewalks, 226 days aboard the ISS. I spent about an hour with him on camera and the bit that stayed with me most was when he tried to describe what actually happens to your perception when you see Earth from that distance. He was very precise about it. Not poetic in the expected way, more clinical, which made it land harder.

He also talked about the psychological preparation, what failure looks like at that level, and how the experience of being in space changes how you think about ordinary decisions back on Earth.

Full conversation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=voS6LWpgQ1g&si=Rdn9pyPxK258kJSc

Karlene Petitt’s case is one of the more disturbing whistleblower stories I’ve come across. She was a senior Delta pilot with a doctorate in aviation safety when she raised concerns about critical safety failures. The airline’s response was to have her declared bipolar by a psychiatrist they were paying $74,000. She lost her career for seven years while fighting the case. The court eventually sided with her.

I interviewed her about the full timeline, the mechanics of how she was targeted, and what it cost her personally and professionally. For anyone who follows whistleblower cases this one has some genuinely unusual elements in terms of how the retaliation was structured.

Full conversation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5pbucztapFM&si=BTLOUMRl4-BMJFkx