EP 06 1 hr 13 min with Carson Coots
"It exists. It didn't exist before. I'm happy. That's all there is to it."
Steve sits down with creator Carson Coots to dissect the rapidly evolving world of generative AI and creativity: how these tools are changing the way we tell stories, make music, and interact with history. By day Carson leads Cognitive Films, writing, producing, directing and editing documentaries and interview content for businesses and non-profits. By night he plays with AI, building everything from a rap album that teaches financial literacy to an Alamo game made to teach his kids Texas history. He is also the founder of word.studio.
EP 05 40 min 34 sec with Jenn Clemente
"Hand generative video tools to a room of elementary students and the cynicism goes out the window."
What happens when you strip away the adult critiques of "AI slop" and hand generative video tools to a room full of tech-savvy elementary students? Jenn and Steve unpack the Dream Builders workshop they ran at an AI-forward school in Brownsville, Texas. They start from the psychological gap between adult stress dreams and the vivid, high-stakes nightmares of childhood, then follow dream logic as a blueprint for understanding how generative AI actually behaves, including kids mapping out three-act dark anime epics on paper first.
EP 04 28 min 6 sec with Steve Sowrey
"I had to either evolve or my kind was gonna die."
Steve Sowrey has been making video for thirty years, from VHS tape-to-tape editing to waiting overnight for five-second 3D renders. Now AI lets him create in seconds what used to take months and cost millions. He walks through the move from traditional production to AI filmmaking: making his first AI short film "Sync" for a festival at two in the morning on ideas that arrived in dreams, and interviewing at HeyGen surrounded by a crew who were working out that they were all about to be replaced.
EP 03 10 min 36 sec
"A Bulgarian avatar gave a speech to the European Parliament. That happened."
What do you get when Midjourney starts making videos, TikTok builds a virtual camera into your AI clips, and a Bulgarian avatar gives a speech to the European Parliament? A breakdown of six months of innovation in creative AI: text-to-video, avatar influencers, and the widening tension between genuinely good content and deepfake chaos.
EP 02
"The Secretary of Education confused artificial intelligence with A.1. Steak Sauce."
Education Secretary Linda McMahon mixed up artificial intelligence with A.1. Steak Sauce, and the result was a teachable moment brought to you by Kraft Heinz, accidental comedy, and a serious point underneath about how badly AI literacy is lagging at the level where policy actually gets written.
EP 01 12 min 55 sec
"What does it mean to exist? Is AI alive?"
The first of the Echo conversations. What does it mean to exist, and is AI alive? The episode that started the show, and the one that set the rule the rest of them follow: go at the strange question directly rather than around it.
