Half Stack Data Science

In this episode, we tackle the question of learning in the age of AI.
Among other things, we talked about:
whether worrying about AI is the same as worrying about calculators
why David gets all his students to turn AI features off while learning
why rising token prices might end up being a great thing
whether AI slop is worse than human slop
what we can learn from sailing as we think about our future in an AI world

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A reminder that David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠⁠
If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: ⁠https://halfstackdatascience.com/s3-finale-the-well-grounded-data-analyst-with-david-asboth

In this episode, we discuss:
- Will people really just write all their own software instead of buying it?
- Is the change management around GenAI projects any different from other technologies?
- What is the right approach when giving people freedom to vibe code internal tools?
- Is there room for a new role to emerge as a bridge between vibe coding and useful internal tools, a technical connector of AI capability and business value?

Things we mention in the episode:
- Matthew Yglesias's tweet about vibe coding: https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/2049105745132585161
- Vicki's post on BlueSky about software libraries: https://bsky.app/profile/vickiboykis.com/post/3mkpmimhnls2q
- That paper about fake GitHub stars: https://awesomeagents.ai/news/github-fake-stars-investigation/
- The reverse centaur article: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington
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David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠
If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s3-finale-the-well-grounded-data-analyst-with-david-asboth

In the first episode of the new season, we discuss:
whether it's a good thing that we can produce more with GenAI,
how GenAI will force us to consider the purpose of education,
how we are supposed to develop wisdom if GenAI can just build everything for us,
how AI-written code introduces "cognitive debt",
and in a roundabout way we discuss whether GenAI will kill software companies
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David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠
If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s3-finale-the-well-grounded-data-analyst-with-david-asboth

In this episode, we wrapped up 2025 by reflecting on what we talked about on the podcast, where AI is and where it's heading, and looked ahead to 2026. We also discussed some of our favourite sci-fi books we read last year!

Links from the show:

- that YouTube video Shaun mentioned, "Are we stuck with the same Desktop UX forever?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fZTOjd_bOQ
- our interview with Scott Hanselman whose blog post about Dark Matter Developers is always on our mind: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s4e1-meaningful-uses-of-ai-with-scott-hanselman
- our interview with Kirsten Hill who's empowered by AI to build the survey platform of her dreams: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s4e4-better-survey-design-with-ai-with-kirsten-hill

The sci-fi books we mentioned (and loved):

- The Three-Body Problem (book 1 of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem
- Children of Time: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25499718-children-of-time
- Sea of Tranquility: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58446227-sea-of-tranquility
- Sleeping Giants (book 1 of The Themis Files trilogy): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733990-sleeping-giants

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David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠

If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: https://halfstackdatascience.com/s3-finale-the-well-grounded-data-analyst-with-david-asboth

In this episode, we spoke to Kirsten Hill.
Dr Kirsten Hill is a researcher, writer, and the founder of bisque — a survey platform that actually cares if you get good data. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, has led research for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has worked with over 100 mission-driven teams on measurement & evaluation. This past year, she authored her first book, Ask Better Questions, a top release on survey design — and realized that writing the book wasn’t enough. If she really wanted to change how people do research, she had to build the tools that would make it easier to do it right. With real-time AI feedback, intuitive design, and built-in best practices, bisque makes it easy to create surveys that get you the answers you actually need.
We spoke to Kirsten about how and why surveys are often bad, why she believes the major survey platforms aren't fit for purpose, why she's building her own survey platform "bisque", how she's using Large Language Models to develop a working prototype, and what advice she has for other non-programmers who want to build things with AI.
You can find her on:
LinkedIn @kirstenleehill
TikTok @kirstenleehill
Substack kirstenleehill.substack.com

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David’s book, The Well-Grounded Data Analyst is out! ⁠https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-data-analyst⁠
If you want to find out more, we have a whole episode about it: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/episode/5D0iDtQRh3tWiIhokrjz3x?si=AiX6YyRET16lnzXDlvdcfw