Ep. #14, Brains in Jars with Dr. Cat Hicks

On episode 15 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team discusses why AI makes human judgment more important than ever. Celebrating their book’s birthday, they revisit alignment, autonomy, abundance, and automation through the lens of AI agents. From evaluating models to recognizing good design, they explore what faster software creation still demands of people.

On episode 14 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team sits down with Dr. Cat Hicks, psychologist and author of The Psychology of Software Teams. Cat unpacks the “Brains in Jars” mental model, the belief that engineers are interchangeable pure-cognition units, and explains why organizations that hold it struggle to use AI well. The conversation covers learning debt, overproduction pressure, and what teams should do with the time agents save.

On episode 13 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Jennifer Riggins about why faster code doesn’t automatically mean better software. They explore how AI exposes organizational bottlenecks, why psychological safety matters, and what Spotify’s growing feature set reveals about user value. Jennifer makes the case for smaller experiments, stronger feedback loops, and keeping people at the center of delivery.

On episode 12 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Steph Hippo, Platform Engineering Director at Honeycomb, about what happens when AI accelerates development beyond the pace humans can absorb. They explore safe defaults, evolving code reviews, and the feedback loops that help teams understand what they ship. Steph makes the case for reinvesting saved time in better decisions, software quality, and human connection.

On episode 11 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team sits down with Chad Fowler to explore regenerative software and what architecture looks like when AI makes code cheap enough to continually replace. They discuss Phoenix Architecture, Pace Layers, observability, architectural constraints, and why the system itself, rather than any individual implementation, may become the real asset in an AI-native future.

On episode 10 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Honeycomb co-founder and CTO Charity Majors about observability, AI, and the changing economics of software development. They explore a future where code is increasingly disposable and regenerable while architecture, constraints, production behavior, and promises to users become the durable artifacts that matter. Along the way, Charity shares her perspective on responsible AI adoption, engineering in nondeterministic systems, and why production remains the ultimate source of truth.

On episode 9 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team explores the complicated relationship between AI, automation, and human creativity. Kim Harrison, Adam Zimman, and Heidi Waterhouse discuss AI’s ability to lower technical barriers and reduce toil, along with its tendency to strip away context, reinforce sameness, and confidently produce answers it does not understand. Along the way, they encounter whale dictionaries, ancient scrolls, AI-written memos, autonomous tractors, and the dangerously comfortable “Yes Bubble.”

On episode 8 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team sits down with Melinda Fekete to discuss FeatureOps, developer experience, and modern software delivery. The conversation covers feature flag lifecycles, runtime control, experimentation, chaos engineering, and why progressive delivery is becoming even more important in the age of AI-assisted development.

On episode 7 of Third Loop, the Progressive Delivery team speaks with Nathen Harvey about the intersection of AI, DevOps, and user-centric software development. Together, they examine what DORA's research reveals about high-performing teams, why shipping faster doesn't automatically create more value, and how organizations can build stronger feedback loops with users. Along the way, they discuss agentic systems, platform engineering, and even AI-powered kitchen appliances.

On episode 6 of Third Loop, Kim Harrison, Adam Zimman, James Governor, and Heidi Waterhouse sit down with Betty Junod. Together, they explore how agentic coding tools are enabling non-developers to build software for themselves, creating a world where the ideal customer profile might be just one person. They discuss personalization, Progressive Delivery, open source, and what happens when users become builders.