Saturday Sessions: Let's Talk

It's good to talk

Author

Kyle Balmer
February 21, 2026

Hey,

New week, new models. We’ve had Sonnet 4.6 and Gemini Pro 3.1 this week. Amongst a whole slew of other news.

It’s….a lot!

And I say this as someone who’s job it is to stay on top of it all.

One thing I’ve found super helpful is being able to TALK about what’s happening.

Chatting to people reinforces your own understanding of topics. And sparks new ideas.

This week for example the question of whether “AI is making us dumb” came up in our Whatsapp group. It was specifically about kids and education but I think this is a super important question for ALL of us.

Based on this I went off and did a livestream on the topic which in turn became an issue of the newsletter: https://aiwithkyle.com/ai-news/143-does-ai-make-us-dumb-yes 

From the presentation

This newsletter triggered even more discussion in the Whatsapp group.

And then even video discussions over on LinkedIn (here’s Iain talking about the “illusion of competence”):

Kyle Balmer wrote this morning about the hidden cost of using AI to skip the hard parts of learning. He called it the illusion of competence. You get the output. You miss the understanding. It's a… | Iain Morrison, Chartered FCIPD

Kyle Balmer wrote this morning about the hidden cost of using AI to skip the hard parts of learning. He called it the illusion of competence. You get the output. You miss the understanding. It's a problem in schools, but it's just as common in the workplace. My take is in the video.

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7430210994678870017

Which again creates yet another discussion point in the Whatsapp group!

It’s a beautiful cascade of ideas and discussion. Being able to learn and grow together rather than being stuck with our own thoughts. Very very cool! And I wanted to say thank you to the community for making this possible.

So: with this in mind, we’re actually opening up the private Whatsapp group for the first time in … well, a while!

If you are interested in hopping in there are details here: https://aiwithkyle.com/ai-with-kyle-group-chat

Heads up: this is a paid group to keep the numbers manageable and the membership active. And (full disclosure) we’re bumping the price up every 50 members. Oh and it’s not a subscription. It’s lifetime - a one-off.

It’s also a rather lovely place filled with lovely people.

So, if you are looking to join an active community of AI experts and enthusiasts (who are also rather lovely people!) then here’s your chance. The link again is: https://aiwithkyle.com/ai-with-kyle-group-chat

Kyle