This week on Pretrained, Pierce and Rich tackle a batch of listener questions they're seeing for the first time. They pull back the curtain on what actually happens when you hit enter in ChatGPT or Claude, from prompt rewriting and system prompts to GPU queues and the UI tricks that make streaming text feel human. From there, they dig into what really separates GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, why models hallucinate with such confidence, and the real-world failure modes that should make everyone double-check AI output. Plus: is AI actually making us dumber, how do you use it at work without "cheating," which jobs are genuinely at risk, and why the gap between free and paid tiers is quietly creating a two-tiered AI experience most people don't even know exists.
What is Pretrained?
Everyone's talking about AI but most of it is hype, jargon, or someone trying to sell you something. Pierce Freeman and Richard Diehl Martinez are two Stanford friends who actually work in this space with nothing to sell you but good vibes. We'll make you smarter - and you might actually enjoy it.