2025 is all but over! For the traditional New Year’s send-off, Ian and Michael look back on the year through the lens of “words of the year” from various dictionaries — and find plenty to be puzzled, amused, and mildly irritated by. From rage bait and parasocial relationships to vibe coding, AI slop, and the strange linguistic inventions of younger generations, the conversation drifts through language, technology, culture, and the growing feeling that everyone might be speaking a slightly different dialect now. Equal parts word nerdery, generational bewilderment, and end-of-year reflection, it’s a fitting way to wave goodbye to the season and stumble into the next one. (This description was created with the help of AI)

AI Unfiltered will return with new episodes in 2026!

In the annual AI Unfiltered Christmas episode, Ian and Michael head north (seasonally and philosophically) to discuss visiting Santa Claus Village well outside the traditional festive window, the strange logistics of Christmas tourism without snow, and what happens when reindeer, capitalism, climate change, and children’s fantasies collide. Along the way there are thoughts on fake snow, mobile Santas, edible mascots, Finnish words for autumn glow, and whether Santa might need to relocate — or rebrand — sooner rather than later. Festive, meandering, and only mildly unhinged, as tradition demands. (This description was created with the help of AI)

Ian and Michael take a scenic tour through the modern world’s contradictions, starting with the widening gap between wealth and reality and the quiet, uncomfortable signs of inequality that everyone pretends not to notice - and the creeping sense that AI is only speeding things up in the wrong direction.

From there, the conversation drifts into cultural territory: the fate of book series continued long after their original authors have died, the ethics of posthumous storytelling, and whether we should simply accept that some stories… end.

There’s also time for a detour through sprawling film franchises, literary purism, the merits (or lack thereof) of late-era Bond and Bourne. A potpourri of societal decay, reading habits, and franchise exhaustion - in other words, a very normal episode of AI Unfiltered. (This description was written with the help of AI)