
Do You Know Yourself Well Enough to Let AI Make Decisions for You? - with Nicholas Skytland Former NASA chief technologist
Nicholas Skytland spent 25 years at NASA, where he helped bring people from around the world together through hackathons. He joins Henrik and Jeremy to share what makes hackathons work, why different perspectives matter, and how to help people through the moment they want to give up. Nick is now bringing that approach to kids. When his wife wanted to run an AI hackathon at her school, restrictions on AI tools led Nick and his team to build Launch.Kids. At one event, 36 teams created 500 applications in a single day. Try Launch.Kids: If you're a student, parent, or teacher interested in learning how to build with AI, we'd love for you to try out Launch.Kids, mentioned on the show. The first 100 listeners can sign up at https://launch.kids/welcome/beyondtheprompt for a free month of credit. The conversation then turns to a bigger question: how well do we really know our own values? Nick, Henrik and Jeremy explore how to communicate what matters to us when working with AI, and why we shouldn't hand over our judgment just because technology makes it easy. Key Takeaways Hackathons are an underused tool Henrik and Jeremy reflect on how hackathons bring different people together, encourage experimentation, and create value even when they don't lead to a finished product. Expect the moment of despair Getting stuck is part of building something new. Nick explains why good hackathons need mentors, encouragement, and a bit of fun to help people push through it. The better you know yourself, the better you can use AI Henrik and Jeremy discuss why understanding your own values, preferences, and ways of thinking helps you give AI better direction and recognize when its answers don't fit. Don't let AI do all the thinking for you AI can make decisions easier, but that doesn't mean we should stop questioning its answers. Henrik and Jeremy reflect on the importance of bringing our own judgment to the conversation, especially when we're dealing with something we don't know much about. Launch.Kids: Launch.Kids Nicholas' LinkedIn: LinkedIn/NicholasSkytland 00:00 Intro: Don't Outsource Your Judgment to AI 00:20 Meet Nicholas Skytland 00:46 How NASA Opened Up Innovation 03:45 Measuring the ROI of Hackathons 05:04 Getting Past the Barriers to Open Innovation 07:51 Bringing Hackathons to Kids 09:19 Building Launch.Kids 14:44 Why “Just Play With AI” Isn't Enough 18:19 The Moment of Despair 21:36 How to Run a Hackathon 23:39 The Process, Not the Product 25:56 Inside Anthropic's Gathering of Faith Leaders 31:33 Be an Active Shaper of AI 34:36 Can AI learn good judgement? 39:00 Who Gets to Decide What's Good? 42:40 Communicating Your Values to AI 44:25 Don't Outsource Your Judgment 46:42 Henrik's Personal AI Playbook 51:10 The Debrief For more prompts, tips, and AI tools. Check out our website: https://www.beyondtheprompt.ai/ or follow Jeremy or Henrik on Linkedin: Henrik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/werdelin Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyutley Show edited by Emma Cecilie Jensen.















