Published 16 February 2026
e543 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on Agentic AI and the changing nature of work, agents renting humans, real time translation, artistic roads, e-bikes for your feet and a whole lot more.
Andy, Michael and Michael get things rolling with several AI articles. First up, is a Mastodon post by Alan Pringle that called attention to a HBR article on the influence of AI on productivity. This then led to a post on productivity acceleration technologies from years past – from COBOL, which was designed to enable business people to write programs, to 4GLs to case tools.
Then, the team discusses a detailed post from Matt Shumer entitled Something Big Is Happening. The entire post is well worth reading, not only for how history is unfolding in real time, also for the recommendations that Matt makes for people to take onboard right now. Among the recommendations are to begin the habit of adapting, and experimenting with multiple tools to build resiliency and experience.
Wrapping up this section is a new version of taskrabbit that provides an API for Agents to rent humans for specific work called rentahuman.ai . The future is certainly coming in fast.
In the AR VR section, there is a story from Tom’s Guide where the author used her Ray Ban Meta glasses to translate the Super Bowl halftime video in real time. This feels like the precursor to the next logical step, a dynamic version of the Amazon X-Ray feature where further context can be personalized and served up to the user if they wish.
After touching on the assembly of Game Poems and the art of roads in games, the team sprints to the end of the episode with Nike’s Project Amplify, which is an ankle exoskeleton to augment humans running abilities. Looping back to the start of the episode, Andy highlights a BBC show featuring Chris McCausland.
What’s been your experience with AI productivity? What are you experimenting with? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know!
These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Selected Links
AI
"For instance, #engineers, in turn, spent more time reviewing, correcting, and guiding #AI-generated or AI-assisted work produced by colleagues. These demands extended beyond formal #code review. Engineers increasingly found themselves coaching colleagues who were 'vibe-coding' and finishing partially complete pull requests."
https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it
— Alan Pringle (@alanpringle@mstdn.social)
2026-02-10T13:47:23.853Z
Harvard Business Review article: AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It
caimito.net post: Why We’ve Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade Since 1969
Wikipedia article: VisualAge
Wikipedia article: Fourth-generation programming language
Wikipedia article: Computer-aided Software Engineering
shumer.dev blog post: Something Big Is Happening
metr.org
theshamblog.com blog post: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me
https://rentahuman.ai
taskrabbit
AR & VR
Tom’s Guide post: I wore Ray-Ban Meta Display smart glasses to watch the Super Bowl halftime show — and understood Bad Bunny in real time
Amazon X-Ray
The Verge article: YouTube is coming to the Apple Vision Pro
Game ON!
gamepoems.com
sandboxspirit.com blog post: Art of Roads in Games
Art in Rhodes
Augmenting Humans
NPR article: ‘E-bike for your feet’: How bionic sneakers could change human mobility
Nike Newsroom post: Nike Unveils Project Amplify, the World’s First Powered Footwear System for Running and Walking
Games at Work e471: Ghost Jobs and AI (for exoskeleton stories)
BBC Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future
BBC iPlayer: Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future
Bonus links
LEGO
Reddit post: I made a working Lego Toaster
hackster.io article: The Windows 98 Toaster is Here
hackster.io article: This Tiny LEGO Fender Guitar Amp Conversion Really Works
Retrododo article: Modder Creates LEGO Game Boy Advance SP & Gets DOOM Playing
Even more!
Board Game Geek article: I made a touchscreen electronic board game table for computer and tablet board games
The Verge article: Toyota made a game engine
Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own.
Michael Martine