33. Very human AI conversations for you
This week, I'm sharing a few AI circles, conversations and podcasts that you might find a valuable investment of your time.
Where is the AI conversation?
I remember working in the Black Summer fires here in Australia and saying to my team with a casual wave of my hand:
“Covid? That’s next week’s problem.”
It was a way of avoiding the obvious: that we’d need to deal with the approaching future. Fortunately, we had preparation and solid conversational channels to pivot with. Boy, did I learn from that.
Especially so when generative AI burst into the public realm in late 2022, I searched high and low for people having the real conversations. Most people I met each day were busy with their work projects. AI was either a wacky item on the news, a gimmick they’d briefly tried, or something to fear.
I was hungry for dialogue — places to toss ideas around, listen deeply, and make sense of the grey static fuzz.
Where was the AI conversation? We had to create it!
That’s why I began experimenting in public. I set about to do all I could to trial and test this new tech with others. I wrote with and on AI, I ran workshops, did public speaking, designed and delivering generative AI education. It’s been a full few years. Doing this has also helped me connect and hear what was really going on from the ground up.
Fast forward, and I now find myself in conversations with people across the world, listening for the signals through the noise and hype.
What about you? What conversations on AI are you part of? What are you paying attention to?
Well, if you need any ideas, I thought I’d share some with you. You’re warmly invited to join or follow along with any of these.
1. 🎯 The AI Leadership Circle
Leading in the AI era is about more than hype and catchphrases. It’s about more than choosing the right tech stack.
When you’re busy running the show, how do you know what matters? Unless you've had the right conversations, you won’t. It’s not enough to “teach yourself” or tick the box with a mandatory online module.
You need real conversations — especially if you’re leading through complexity.
That’s why Sue Cunningham has spent the past year creating space and time for leaders to connect, reflect, and "AI-up" their practice. She’s just opened a new AI Leadership Circle kicking off mid-July.
I’ve worked with Sue through some of the toughest collective times we’ve faced. She’s one of the fastest human thinkers I’ve met. Grounded. No BS. Sue knows transformation at the coalface — and brings a deeply human approach to the work.
If you're in an executive role and feel like it’s time to unpick the messiness of AI — this is a powerful place to start.
2. 🎙 6 Ps in an AI Pod: AI, Software & Wetware
If you’d rather listen than speak up (for now), check out Karen Smiley’s AI, Software & Wetware podcast.
Karen is a seasoned data scientist with decades of experience. She also curates the “She Writes AI” list of women and nonbinary people on Substack, and brings fierce intelligence and deep generosity to everything she does. A brilliant guide and gracious host.
Her conversations go beyond the hype to what people think, feel, and do with AI, ML, and data.
I’ve listened to several episodes now, and it’s one of the few spaces where real people speak plainly about real AI.
Plus, Karen just interviewed me ;-), so I’ve had a fresh dose of her calm and smart questions. She’s a great host. You never know, you might like to share your insights with her too!
3. 🤝 Humans + AI launches new experimental spaces
» heads up: my space launches Saturday, July 6 at 8am AEST «
One of the first conversations I joined in 2023 was with the Humans + AI network, founded by Ross Dawson.
Now, Ross and his team are putting real energy into experimental new “Spaces” — places for people like us to build, lead, and learn in community.
I’ll be leading Whole Systems AI and inviting conversation about how AI is embedded in our broader systems, and how we might learn from, challenge, and reshape them. I’ll bring my lens of living systems and cybernetics, but I’m equally interested in what others bring to the table. It’s a place for robust, evolving conversation. Maybe you will be there, too? You are welcome.
If it was built, it can be rebuilt. We don’t have to accept every AI narrative — just because some billionaire said so.
Human + AI’s new: 6 deep-dive exploration spaces
AI-Enhanced Thinking (Ross Dawson and Myles Hopkins)
Applying AI effectively to improve thinking, work, and capabilitiesAI-Augmented Strategy (Ross Dawson)
Enhancing all phases of the strategy process with Humans + AI structuresAI-Augmented Foresight (Dennis Draeger)
Tools, processes and structures to improve our capacity to usefully view the futuresAI in Enterprise (Launching soon!) (Mary Daly and Fernando Oliva)
Exploring and creating best practices for adopting and scaling value from AIWhole Systems AI (Jax NiCarthaigh - Yours truly)
Understanding and enhancing the entire system, and systems within, humanity and planet ***Launches Saturday, July 5 at 8am AEST***Responsible AI (Rawn Shah)
Creating value with AI with responsibility, accountability, and human dignity
These are free to join until 15 September 2025 — and AI-Enhanced Thinking will remain free indefinitely. Come explore, connect, and contribute.
4.🪐 PLANET Collaborations
And now for a little shameless self-promotion... PLANET Collab, a podcast and thinking space that I co-host with Brooklyn AI Optimiser, Erik Sanner. It’s our place to talk with smart, grounded humans about how to do responsible AI differently.
We explore themes through my PLANET framework — People, Language, Agency, Need, Environment, and Technique.
We are one episode in. Which is nail biting, because most podcasts don’t go beyond the first. Perhaps, if you listen to our inaugural episode, you can give us the encouragement to keep going. (Or to stop, if it comes to that.) We talked with our friend, the humanitarian technologist and Silicon Valley veteran, Peter Kaminski.
Pete shared his brilliant story of working as a young guy at the Byte Café in Nevada just after the the internet started.
He’s one of my favourite storytellers, and all around good guy, reflecting on the trajectory of technology and humans. We could talk to him for hours (and we have), but this is one hour to start you off.
Podcasting is new to us, but we’re hooked. More to come soon. Please encourage us!
5. Lastly, a book I’ve just been recommended…
Not read yet, but I’ve just bookmarked burnoutfromhumans.net — a strange and compelling corner of the internet.
It’s part-manifesto, part field note from the edge… It’s calling to me — feels aligned with Gen2200 thinking. I’ll report back.
If you’ve already wandered through it, I’d love to know what struck you.
📣 If you’re curious...
I’ll share more over the coming months — podcasts, tools, frameworks, invitations. Some of it will be polished. Some will be raw. All of it will be offered in the spirit of building regenerative futures together.
🌿 Your Turn
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we understand AI, not just as a tool, but as part of the broader systems we’re entangled with. How we shape it. How it shapes us. And how it might be used differently if we approached it with regenerative intent.
So I’m curious:
📚 Is there a thinker, conversation circle, or idea that’s helped you make sense of the AI noise lately?
🌐 Where have you seen AI used in a way that felt genuinely helpful, earth-centred, or hopeful?
🪴 What role do you think AI could (or should) play in the kind of futures Gen2200 is working toward?
You’re welcome to share a thought, a link, or just let the questions simmer.
And if you’re building something or wondering something — I’d love to hear that too.
This is, after all, the work: listening, imagining, and shaping the systems we live inside.
Thanks for being in it with me.
— Jax
Working in Public… Gen2200 Journey 3 July 2025
Here’s the latest glimpse of what I’ve been exploring, building, and experiencing recently:
After exploring professional placements with generous and savvy artists, academics, movements and coops around the globe, I have joined PercoLab Coop for the next 6 months. Whoot whoot! Regenerative working and playing models, here I come.
Shared my Cyber-Physical System , a “memory stick'“ at Demo day alongside my colleagues as the Master of Applied Cybernetics at ANU (will share stories and pics in next issue)
Wrote, designed and submitted reflections, assignment, research proposals - including some research on scale - more to come.
Started swimming daily at the ANU pool. I’m at 600meters a go so I’ve got a bit to improve on. Working up to a Zumba class next.
🎙 Interviewed by Karen Smilie for her 6 Ps in an AI Pod: AI, Software & Wetware
Created two custom chatbots for clients
🛰 Launched and co-hosted the PLANET podcast with Erik Sanner — first episode out with Pete Kaminski
Designed and delivered training for a fabulous bunch of Kiwi’s through Communicant Link’s AI for Communication and Engagement Professionals course.
Attended weekly planning sessions without missing one!
🧭 Built the Whole Systems AI space within the Humans + AI network — launches July 6, special thanks to fellow conspirator, Robbie Slape.
💬 Explored free-writing on grief in a very special @Catalyst Network workshop with Robynne Berg in her “Stillness Room”. I’ll share my experience in a few SubStacks time. Please consider visiting and subscribing to her room at Substack.
Spent many amazing hours coaching my neurodiverse clients.
Met Karen Smiley online for an interview on her 6Ps in an AI Podcast!
Started conversations with wonderful connection who is an expert on dialogues - more soon. Travelled out to Namadji National Park.
In some way each of these pieces takes me and you closer to Gen2200. Over coming months, I’ll start to bring the threads together. The composting is nearly done, we’re a third of the way through winter. It will be time for seed planting soon.
📢 Want more?
📖 More Jax insights on Medium and LinkedIn
📸 My photos — Flickr