HOAI 2: Nine Billion Knobs - What's Actually Inside an AI Model, Explained

Chatbots have a reputation for telling you what you want to hear. Mikah Sargent tests that by telling ChatGPT it's wrong when it's right. Then he tells one made-up argument twice, with the same facts and only the teller changed, and pushes back on the verdict. He explains what researchers call sycophancy, one way training can encourage the habit, and why it can be easy to miss. Then he shares four habits for questioning the answer. Send your AI questions to [email protected] Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord. Sponsor: ZipRecruiter.com/twit

Ask a chatbot the same thing twice, and you might expect two different answers. Mikah Sargent runs one everyday request through ChatGPT five times and gets back the same basic text, two of them word for word. He explains where differences come from, what research says about why tuned chatbots can narrow the range of their answers, and why these replies left out what only he knew. Then he fills in the blanks and adds examples to show what prompt engineering really means, with four habits for getting answers you'd actually use. Send your AI questions to [email protected] Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord. Sponsor: threatlocker.com/twit

The big AI apps now have research modes that make you wait for a report full of sources. Is the wait worth it? Mikah Sargent gives ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity the same complicated question, plus ChatGPT with regular web search as a control, and compares how long they take, where they look, what they miss, and how much cleanup each report needs. Then he checks every answer against a rebate and tax-credit answer key built from official sources. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord. Sponsor: canary.tools/twit - use code: TWIT

What happens when AI stops talking and starts doing? Mikah Sargent puts Meta's Muse agent to work on simple jobs, hard ones, and a couple of weird ones: a weekly news brief, a day trip, a shopping cart that stops for his approval, a web page it builds itself, and a podcast about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. Along the way, he explains what makes an agent different from a chatbot, what Muse can and can't touch, and the settings to check before you hand any AI the keys. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord. Sponsor: threatlocker.com/twit

What's actually inside an AI model? Mikah Sargent opens up the file from last week's episode and finds tokens, billions of numbers, and one surprisingly simple job: guess the next piece of text. Along the way, he shows why the same question can get a different answer every time, where all those numbers came from, and why a chatbot can sound completely sure of itself and still be wrong. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord. Sponsor: joindeleteme.com/twit-biz

Your next chatbot doesn't need the cloud. Mikah Sargent installs a free app, downloads an AI model, turns off the Wi-Fi, and keeps right on chatting, all on an ordinary computer. Along the way, he explains how to read a model listing, including what the size and "Q4" labels mean, so you can pick a model that runs well on your own machine. Then the local model goes head-to-head with a cloud assistant to see where it holds up and where it falls short. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Hands-On AI is the show that turns AI confusion into AI confidence. In this introductory episode, Mikah Sargent lays out what the show is and isn't: short, focused episodes — most 10 to 15 minutes — that take one question, one tool, or one technique at a time. Some weeks go under the hood on what a large language model is actually doing. Some weeks get practical: the AI already in your pocket, or a model running entirely on your own computer. And some weeks are honest verdicts on the tools everyone's talking about. This show is a conversation. Send your AI questions to [email protected] or reach out on TWiT's social media, and you might hear your question answered on the show. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Qwen, Muse Glimmer, Ollama, llama.cpp, quantization, mixture-of-experts, RAG, tokens per second. On Hands-On AI, those aren't buzzwords — Mikah Sargent will explain exactly what they mean, then put them to work on hardware you already own. No cloud, no account, no data, leaving your desk. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Depending on who you ask, AI is either going to save the world or end it. Mikah Sargent has a different take: it's a tool, and what matters is what you do with it. Every week on Hands-On AI, Mikah tests the tools everyone's talking about and tells you the truth — what's worth your time, what isn't, and what's actually going on under the hood. Hands-On AI launches Thursday, October 1. Subscribe at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

How many times this week has someone told you that you should be using AI — without ever telling you how? Mikah Sargent introduces Hands-On AI, a new podcast from TWiT.tv with short, focused episodes that explain what these tools actually do, then show you step by step how to put them to work. No buzzwords, no doom. Just practical help from one human to another. Hands-On AI launches Thursday, October 1. Host: Mikah Sargent Download or subscribe to Hands-On AI at https://twit.tv/shows/hands-on-ai Want access to the ad-free audio and video and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.