Are you using AI or is AI using you? | Ricardo Luiz | Season finale

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We talk a lot on this show about what AI can do. This one's about what it can quietly take, if you let it.

Ricardo Luiz has spent over twenty years building products at the intersection of psychology, UX and AI, and his warning is simple: the moment you outsource what to think, you've outsourced who you are. AI is good enough and fast enough that most people won't notice the handoff happening.

We get into exactly where the line sits between AI amplifying you and AI quietly making you dependent on it. Ricardo's test: if the tool disappeared tomorrow, would you panic or would you just slow down? Panic means you were never really driving.

We also get into why Anthropic named 'understanding what's happening inside the black box' a real 2026 goal, why intent is the one word Ricardo wants you to sit with before opening another AI tool and a story involving a dog, a cancer diagnosis and a vaccine formula that shouldn't have existed. Plus a study on why people trust an AI's medical answer over an actual doctor's, even when it's wrong.

And we get honest about the economics nobody wants to talk about. The tools feel cheap right now because the real cost isn't being charged yet. Ricardo's bet: give it two years and the businesses behind these tools will have to charge what they actually cost and not everyone will be able to afford what they've gotten used to.

Fair warning: this one might change how you use every AI tool you touch after it.

About Ricardo: Ricardo is a product leader focused on AI-native product development, mentorship and the cultivation of communities of practice. He's spent his career turning ambiguous problems into shipped products and individual contributors into the teams everyone wants to work on. He mentors emerging and senior PMs across geographies, hosts peer-learning circles and believes the most effective thing a senior practitioner can do is multiply other practitioners. 

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/uxluiz/
- UXDX: https://uxdx.com/profile/ricard-luiz/
- WUD Portugal: https://wudportugal.com/orador/ricardo-luiz/

Mentioned in this episode:

• 'The Urgency of Interpretability' - Dario Amodei: https://darioamodei.com/post/the-urgency-of-interpretability
• The study on over-trust in AI-generated medical responses: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.15266
• Coverage of the Claude Max plan usage-limits lawsuit (Engadget): https://www.engadget.com/2194626/anthropic-hit-with-lawsuit-over-its-claude-max-usage-limits/

Season 2 ends here. Season 3 arrives in September and takes the show beyond tech; we will have doctors, chefs, scientists, artists, all asked the same closing question. Subscribe now so you're there for episode one.

Human × Intelligent is a podcast at the intersection of design, AI and human agency. Hosted by Madalena Costa.
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Hosted by Madalena Costa · Senior product designer and AI systems strategist