The WP Minute+

Matt: Mark Szymanski, welcome
back to the WP Minute.

Mark: Uncle Matt, it's
always a pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much.

It's been a while, but we're back.

It has

Matt: been a while.

you know, there's, Today's topic, we're
gonna be talking, hopefully, a little

bit about, AI, and, my exploration
with coding, with AI, like getting

a little bit more serious about it.

I saw you put out a video, I almost
trolled you on that video, I'll save that.

for a later conversation.

That's how you put out a video
using AI to code a plugin.

So I'm excited to hear more about that.

And of course I'll link
it up in the show notes.

but, yeah, this time instead of me
leading, I'm just as lost as you are.

So this is going to be an
interesting conversation, right?

Usually I'm here coaching you
through something, helping

you understand something.

I'm just as lost as you are
with AI, maybe even more so.

And, I'm kind of interested to talk
about both of our experiences and maybe

what we're, what we're up to with it.

If that's cool with you.

Mark: It's always great.

Always great to chat with you, brother.

yeah, I mean, Well, I just want to say
right off the top, I know we were talking

in the green room before this, that
you, I've only known you for, I think,

I can't remember what our anniversary
is, knowing each other, but it's been

a year or very, just around a year, and
you've gone in that time from completely

dis, complete disdain for AI, to now
realizing that it's, it's coming, it's,

it's here, it's gonna continue to get a
little more interesting, and you've had a

chance to look at it a little deeper, and
now, As you're saying off camera, you're

basically a senior developer, you know, I

Matt: feel like a senior developer, but
the code output is probably abysmal.

Mark: we definitely need to dig into that.

Yeah, we definitely need to dig into that.

Matt: So let's talk about, sort of giving
up the reins to AI and like where, where

my thoughts are, you know, these days,
I still think it's just, a really good

assistant right now it is replicating.

So I've been using it.

Claude, I've been using Claude largely
over the last, I don't know, six months.

I generally, it's how I shape a lot
of my show notes, for the podcast

episodes that I put out really,
that's what I use it for mostly.

and, it's been fine for that, right?

It's, it's been okay for that.

these are things that
are, you know, low value.

you know, I, I just need concise, I need
speed and efficiency and that's where,

you know, Claude and it's recent iteration
of, it's, LLM has been really great 3.

5 or whatever it was.

And, and the.

As of this recording.

But anything else that I was trying
to have it do on the things that I was

looking for, like, I don't know, even
analyzing data, throwing a spreadsheet at

it and asking it certain questions, and
I'd say even like six months ago when I

started getting into it, at least with
Claude, asking it to code some stuff

for me, it just wasn't really working.

For me, and fast forward six months,
I've made a lot more headway probably

because the tools are getting better.

There is one tool that I started to
use, which is like literally life

changing, which I just discovered
over the, over the weekend.

But all of this is to say is
like, it still is just doing

the things I'm asking it to do.

Writing words is doing good, writing
code seemingly is doing great, because

the shit that I'm building is working.

but I don't, it's not really
helping me or guiding me if

I'm making the right decisions.

In other words, there still
has to be a layer of human

interaction with this stuff.

which I think anyone taking
it serious, will know that.

and certainly if you're doing it for your
business, like if you're in marketing,

and, I don't know, you're trying to
like make blog posts and pages for, for

customers, or even write code for your
WordPress website, I think at the end

of the day, like, You're still going to
need to know what the hell you're doing

and understand the concepts right now.

I'm totally lost with what I'm doing.

I just keep smashing the prompts
and it keeps giving me code.

I try it, it works or it doesn't,
and then I ask it to do it again.

And then I just move on to the next step.

It's.

The worst way of doing it.

It's like totally, unoptimized.

I'm burning oil, and like, I am the
world's problem with greenhouse gases

right now, because I am making NVIDIA
CPUs just, or NVIDIA GPUs just go nuts

with the code that I'm trying to write.

There's no optimization on my side.

does that make sense?

Like, I feel like it's still not
there to like, just completely

solve the world's problems.

Mark: That is a really good example of
probably where I would say most of the

world is with these tools right now.

I want to make some quick disclaimers
and maybe just kind of continue

to set the scene a little bit.

The first disclaimer that I'm gonna
make, I think I can speak for both of

us when We say that we don't know how
this stuff works technically at all.

we can, we can pseudo
describe how it works, right?

It's basically just like they somehow
coded something that went across the

internet, so to speak, all the language
data that we have and basically built kind

of like a little bit of a language model.

We could think of it as almost like a
little working brain, but it doesn't

really expand too much on things.

I feel like we're maybe getting there,
but it doesn't really expand on things.

It's really just like.

a model of data that it can pull from
and accurately kind of like, like again,

pseudo feel like a person that you're
talking to or something like that.

It's way better than a Google search,
in a lot of ways because it has all that

data and it can express it back to you.

It's kind of like talking to a
person and for people that are.

Completely removed from technology.

It's very new and very
interesting and very cool.

Once you play with it a little bit,
you realize kind of what's going on.

You realize some of the limitations
and all that sort of stuff,

but that's a big disclaimer.

The other big disclaimer that I feel
like that I can kind of say or set

the scene here for, in, as of November
of 2024, Claude Chachi BT Gemini.

There's a ton of other
ones obviously out there.

None of them are, this is I think
the big part and what you're

kind of describing the beginning.

They're not magic.

They're not mind readers.

They're not, independent
like thinkers in any way.

They are literally just
assistance for the most part.

The best way that in the way that
I feel like in the last like month

or two, I've really like stepped
up my prompt engineering or just

my utilization of these tools.

And the mindset change that I
had was like, this isn't magic.

This is like my, If I was like a, senior
marketing director or a senior developer

or whatever, this is my junior sitting
next to me and I can be like the manager

or more of the director and they can
do some of the work and they're not

going to be able to do the whole work.

It's, it's actually kind of funny.

I've thought about this many times and I'm
like, I haven't, I don't have a extensive

background in corporate environment,
but it's almost kind of like that.

It can just take the
place a little bit of.

The less senior I'm not, I'm not
saying that we should like get rid

of junior developers and stuff.

I'm just saying like, that's the level
of capability that this stuff has.

But like you said, you ha it has to be
directed by somebody kind of currently.

It's not really.

It's not really there yet, at least
the way that most people use it.

And again, the biggest disclaimer
of all is this just started.

Like, like a few years ago max,
so we are extremely early to this.

And, that's why, that's why I'm
making some of the content, because

I know this is where it's headed.

Like, we're just going to keep
getting crazier with this.

Matt: Yeah, I was having a
conversation with my brother.

Who's been using chat
GPT, for a little while.

And he uses it much
more for, coding stuff.

And I talked to him a couple
of weeks ago about this.

And, you know, he was saying like, Hey
man, this is, you know, change in the

world, this is going to be, you know,
totally, this is really going to make

things weird over the next couple of
years of how people are, whatever,

just doing anything on the web, whether
it's, you know, your search from

search to creating content, to writing
code, to interacting with other sites.

and I agree with him.

But I think at the top of this stuff,
I feel like we're in the, the housing

bubble, or like, a couple of years ago
during COVID when like money was free and

everyone was just like getting mortgages.

It is like 2%, you know, you could do all
this stuff and money was just out there.

I feel like we're in that mode
right now with AI where this stuff

is still too cheap, like 20 bucks
a month to do what I'm doing.

I can't see that sustaining.

Right.

And I think what we're looking at is.

In the near future, a lot of these sites
either just like constantly ramping up the

price like we see with freaking streaming
services with everything, right, because

they're burning cash and power, literally,
and, inevitably, there'll be some, like,

some major corporation needs to win.

As it always does.

And we're going to start to
see like the tightening of like

what's available at what cost.

So the way I see it is all
these guys, Claude, chat GPT.

It was the only two I really use.

I don't, I don't use Gemini
or anything else really.

But those two are just going to
be like, All right, we're done.

Like the free ride is over.

It's either now minimally a hundred
bucks a month, two hundred bucks

a month Like what's the pressure
point where people will pay up to?

Or you're just not gonna get all this
new cool shit that you're getting now

for 20 bucks a month And that's really
gonna that's when things will change

I think dramatically with like who has
access to what like what is your best

AI and and can you afford to use it?

I think is is is where we're headed.

It's not gonna be like this
commodity like we're like we're

accessing today I mean could be
wrong, but that's the way I see it

Mark: Could be, I wish I knew who
it was and if I find the video

again, we can link it below.

But there was a video, it was just
a short, like a one or two, three

minute video where this guy was
saying that around the time that

OpenAI, did they go private or public?

I can't, whatever they did there.

They had like a weird non

Matt: profit at one point.

Yeah.

Sort Mullenweg

Mark: and automatic stuff,
like you're just like, what?

Yeah, what happened there?

but so, Around that time, somebody was,
in this video that I saw, like, kind

of like it was, I wish I could remember
the argument entirely, but basically

they said that they're not worried
about basically what you described there

because all, because everybody and their
mother, it was so weird how this happens.

Like we heard the word AI, we
saw chat GPT, and then basically

overnight, everyone started
implementing these things.

And it's strange how that happens.

Sometimes it's like, you need one person
to just be like, Oh, I figured it out.

And then somehow, Even though you
couldn't figure it out for many years.

Now everybody is releasing their thing
where they figured it out, I guess

just reverse engineering or whatever.

But, but because we're seeing that
and all these things are cheap,

they're thinking that everything is
just going to continue to be cheap.

Now, again, certainly at certain
points, there's going to be more

developments and maybe there'll be like
more expensive, but then they'll come

down and a more commoditized thing.

I just don't think that this version
of AI is ever really going to be

like expensive because it's already
cheap and it doesn't do anything.

Bing.

Completely groundbreaking.

Like it's definitely a big shift, but
it's not like you can just tell it to

do something like, you know, we, we
think about, I don't know if you've

seen, obviously you've heard of Tesla
and the cars and everything like that

and everything you can do, but those
are still like a premium ish product.

I don't know if you saw the
Tesla bots just like that.

They, you know, showed like
the, that level of stuff is.

I feel like AI, I don't know, 0,
whatever they call it, you know,

whatever they're going to dub that,
that's going to be the next thing.

Once it starts moving into like hardware,
I feel like, and physical items that

are going to like actually enhance your
life, like more physically rather than

just the stuff that we can do digitally.

I, that's when the world's
really going to change.

Like, cause everybody's going to see that.

Like when you see robots walking
around and things, it's like

literally I robot from that Will
Smith movie, that's going to be wild.

But,

Matt: Yeah, it doesn't it.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think we're we're
missing this layer right now.

And I want to talk about our experiences
like coding in a moment, but we're

missing this like connected layer.

So like, what would AI
be really great for?

Well, I want it to look at my to do list.

I want it to prioritize it based on
like what I've prioritized in the past.

I want it to, you know, recommend
what my next steps are, right.

To improve my productivity, right.

Because you know, getting things done,
like, you know, you have this to do list.

It's like write the blog posts
and you're like, okay, like,

where do I start with this?

Like, I want smart intelligence
to like, look at my list.

Break it down and then start to prompt me
and say, here's what you should do next.

Like these are, but it's not
gonna, there's no AI to do that.

And then you're just siloed into one.

Mark: Let me stop you
there for a second though.

Do you, first question, and
then there's a follow up.

Do you think it can't do that right now?

Do you believe that it can't,
like from your experience?

Or do you believe that you
just don't have the tooling or

you don't, I just don't think

Matt: that I don't think
that tooling exists.

Like I don't want to give
up my to do list app.

I want it to work with it.

And you know, we've seen some of
these things like, I don't know

if folks are just listening, I'll,
I'll try to find it and link it

up, but I know Claude launched.

some new experimental thing, I don't
think it's generally available yet,

but it'll control your computer to
do things like that's getting to the

next level where like, yeah, okay, so
now I can tell Claude, Hey, you know,

prune my to do list to open up my email
and start responding to that stuff.

But I still think that's so far away.

And then do you really trust.

But back to that human interaction
layer, like, do you trust the code

that you're deploying to your server?

Like you're gonna spot
check it before you do that.

and are you going to trust it
to manage your, your to do list?

you know, I, I don't know, but
that, but yeah, I mean, once it

gets incorporated into that layer.

Yeah, I mean, I think productivity
will, we're going to see a few years of

like, wow, this is immense productivity.

but then what are the next few
years after that look like?

Where?

You know, it's starting
to do things for you.

And you're like, holy shit, like, do I get
paid the same, you know, because of these

efficiencies, you know, I don't know.

It's, that's why, you know,
again, shout out to my brother.

I think he's looking at it going,
things are going to get weird.

But anyway, Let's just talk
about our experiences with,

with coding and, I'll start.

So I, I have this idea for this web
app and it's not even like something

I'm making generally available.

It's a, it's more of like a tool for
myself, but I want it to operate, as a web

app, one, because I want the challenge,
but two, like, there's other ways that I

can extend it and do some other things.

But anyway, the point is, I
was just like, all right, I'm

gonna get more serious about it.

Let me see if I can figure this
stuff out because Claude 3.

5 came out and I heard
it was great for coding.

So my first experience is just dump
all these thoughts into Claude.

Here's the idea.

Here's what I want you to build.

I had some direction, I asked it a
few things because I do have a sort

of a network operating background.

So I was like, let's compare
this to running on an AWS stack

versus a CloudFlare stack.

I've heard some great things
about CloudFlare's efficiencies.

I just don't know if it's as mature.

So I asked it to like compare
and contrast some of this stuff

and I end up going to CloudFlare.

Path because I just didn't
want to use AWS for this.

I don't even know if
that's the right thing.

So that's problem number one.

I'm asking AI to like, give me advantages
of, of both of these technical stacks.

It said, you know, cloudflare
is the most efficient.

Okay.

You know, so great.

so I decided to go with that and then
I just started dumping the ideas and

like just hammering it with, like the
questions and what I need it to do.

And the first major lesson that I
learned was these interfaces, you

know, you go to Whatever it is, claude.

ai, chat.

openai, com.

These interfaces, you just dump stuff
into it, and it is just like this huge

pool that you're just throwing stuff into.

And what I found with Claude was, I
just started burning all of the tokens.

I'm a pro 20 bucks a month user,
but I would reach my limit.

In like an hour of asking it
questions and having it code for me.

So I found myself talking to it
and the answers it was giving me.

It was like, ah, it's
like, it's guiding me.

It's like saying, here's
what you should do next.

And then it would prompt me
and say, well, you know, do you

want to extend these features?

Do you want more clarity?

Like do you want, and I'd be
talking to it like, yeah, man,

give me more clarity because I
don't know what the hell I'm doing.

So it would give me these
answers and extend upon it.

But.

It was just so much so fast that I was
burning the, the, the tokens and then

it would just say, Hey, you can't use 3.

5 until whatever 2 PM, you know, it'd
be like a four, three or four hour

window and I'd have to like shut my
laptop and be like, fuck, I can't

talk to this thing anymore, right?

But I, I could go to three or
whatever, whatever it's called.

And then, but the answers
were just so vastly different.

the experience was so different.

To like ask it code and it
didn't know like where it left

off with my other conversation.

So that was super frustrating.

But the first lesson I learned was
you still have to be dialed in.

Otherwise you're just at least with Claude
anyway, you're going to burn through those

tokens, you know, just asking a zillion
questions and having it talk to you.

If that makes sense.

Mark: No, yeah.

And if you, if you've, if you've tried
Claude, I would recommend you take a

look at it, but what Matt's describing
there, what you're describing, yeah, it's,

it's entirely, it's entirely like that.

So I made a couple of videos, maybe
two months ago at this point where I

was just diving into this concept of
literally maybe my first times using

Claude and trying to code when I did that.

I had that exact same
experience that you had.

I was like.

What the fuck?

I, I have all these questions
still and like, I, I can't do

this until tomorrow or whatever.

I'm not sure if there's a way around that.

I don't know if you can buy more tokens.

one piece of one thought there though,
is that whatever you're spending to

get that information, you absolutely
would have spent way more money trying

to get somebody to do it for you.

Like, sure.

So, I mean, just to keep that in
perspective, but I, but again, it's,

it's, your point is completely taken.

Like that's kind of annoying
where we're at right now.

I do think it's probably a bit of.

Again, where we're at right now, so
to speak, with again, being extremely

early, but the fact that you can
do it, you know, we could stick on

that and that's like the main piece.

What I've learned from my second go
around with this video that I just posted

today as recording this, it's like an
hour and a half long video and I did it

and I did it specifically in two ways.

The first part of it was just kind
of me explaining what I was doing and

the finished product and then the back
half hour or whatever is me literally.

In Claude, like playing
around building it.

So there's a, there's a bunch of little
gold nuggets in there, but a couple of

the ones that I found was, if you're
going to do this, you have to realize

like you have to continuously get
better at being a prompt engineer.

You have to understand that, like, you
have to give it all that information.

You have to ask it to ask you questions,
like prompt it to ask you questions

and particularly one at a time too.

So you can just like kind
of have a conversation.

There's a little bit of stuff
in there about like, you know,

saving tokens and all that.

The first time I did it, this is a
really big one, the first time I did

it, when, it'll give you, let's say
you're just making a simple WordPress

plugin, so, it codes a bunch of stuff for
you, it outputs the files and the nice

little art, artifacts, feature things,
so you can kinda see it and everything

like that, you can download the files,
you can save them into your, on your

computer directories and all that.

If you ask it to change something or
it has to rewrite it, what it, I think

what it does on purpose is only gives
you part of the file back because

I think that's just less tokens.

It doesn't want you to rewrite everything.

I was telling it, no, I don't, I want
you to rewrite the whole thing for

me so I can just copy and paste it.

Not really a good idea because
you're going to burn a shit ton more.

That's what I was doing

Matt: too.

I was just, this

Mark: is what I mean.

Like you have to be the senior
developer and it's the junior developer.

Like you're still working,
you're just guiding it and

it's doing a lot of this stuff.

So that's one, that's
one thought in my mind.

we can talk about like, you
know, is the code good or not?

I think that if you're doing something
relatively ubiquitous, it's going to

be pretty good because it's not, unless
it's hallucinating, which I don't know.

Hopefully you can kind of tell
maybe sometimes, but I don't know.

You definitely probably
want to get the shit vetted.

Let me just say that.

But the one other piece of it is
you mentioned where you're just kind

of dumping everything into a pool.

The one cool thing that I've found with
Claude is it has a projects feature.

I don't know what plan it's on or
whatever, but that kind of like where

we're not at yet and kind of, they're
kind of not there is think about

like these LLMs of having like a big
language model that they've scraped

the internet and looked through all
the data and everything like that.

Okay.

That's the whole LLM.

What I want though, and I've tried this
and I haven't like put it, I haven't

made a video or anything too much yet.

What I want to do is the LLM doesn't
know what I want in this project or maybe

like about me or my business or whatever.

The secondary piece of this, and people
have been doing this on like, if you've

ever seen somebody do like a personal
AI chat bot where they basically

recreate themselves so people can ask
questions and answer like they're, you

need to, what we all should be doing.

This is a really good piece of
content actually that I should write.

But, we all were like building our
Facebook pages or our LinkedIn's

or our websites or our blogs.

What we need to be doing now is
like building our own personal LLM.

Where it's like everything about us.

So at any point like we could call
in or somebody else could call

into that and like get the answer.

Because that is like, I feel like,
maybe 75 area of where we need

to go with some of this stuff.

Because then, if you can do that,
you can create that, your own little

segmented thing there, then now you've
added more information to it, kind

of like how you're doing, right?

Like, you threw all that information
in there, and if you could silo that,

you could always come back to that.

I know they do it in the chat formats, but
the projects thing is a separate thing.

You could always come back
to that and you could always

continue that that piece of it.

So a lot of stuff there but that's been
my experience a couple little tips that

i've found so far in my short journey.

Matt: Yeah, I started I Purposely
started in a project like when I got

more serious about building this app.

I started in a cloud project and
I I I still find it lacking in You

it, especially when you hit, I have
to just get better at understanding

like how the, how this stuff works.

But if you start a chat, let's say with 3.

5, sonnet, I believe is what it's called.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sonnet.

which is there at this point,
they're most advanced, that is

accessible to average users.

You start that chat, you start, you know,
going down the road of like, okay, build

me this, this script and, I'm building
something, again, runs on CloudFlare.

CloudFlare has workers, which is, I don't
know, the way that I understand it, the

way that I've always perceived it as,
is like a serverless code architecture.

Basically, I can run tiny, tiny,
tiny little operating systems that

will run these, these scripts.

these commands.

So I have to build this big
script that does all these API.

Endpoints and routes and connections
and all this other stuff.

And if I'm chatting with it, 3.

5 saw on it, I'm improving it.

I'm adding API endpoints.

I'm testing it.

I'm building it, deploying it.

And then I run out of
tokens and it's okay.

You can't talk to me until four o'clock.

I can't like back out to the pro
like air quotes, back out to the

projects folder and then pick up on
it with like version, you know, LLM 3.

0.

And say, okay, let's reference this file
that we've been building over here with 3.

5.

And now like, let's
continue building this.

It just, it has no idea on how to do that.

Or unless I'm just maybe not
prompting it well enough.

I mean, it creates the artifact.

You see it.

This is getting like really
inside baseball here.

But if you use Claude, folks who
are listening and use Claude,

you know what I'm talking about.

You have like the previous files that
it's created in the project that you

can click on at any time and see.

Even with the name, because it gives it
a name, or you can actually tell it, give

it this name, and you try to reference
it, it still has no freaking idea.

Which is one of like the most
aggravating things for me.

Unless I, unless their projects don't
work the same as I thought they did, or

it just simply has no idea because the 3.

5 stuff was way more advanced.

Like the, let me backtrack.

If you're asking 3.

5 to code something for you, it is
literally like having somebody sit

alongside of you and talk to you.

Like, it explains everything.

It Asks you what you want to do
next, suggests things that you should

be doing, you know, next, for like
features you're like, Oh shit, I

never even thought about that feature.

And you're like, wow, this is amazing.

And then as soon as you go to like
three, it's like the baseline one,

it's just like, here's the code.

It doesn't say anything else.

And it's just like, shit,
man, what the hell happened?

You were so nice to me in this
other chat and now we got nothing.

it's vastly different.

And, so what I started to do it too is
like, yes, I started to, as I understood

the limitations I was running up against.

I started, you know, making the
requests a little bit smaller.

And then in the, I
forget what it's called.

let's see if I can pull
it up really quick.

There's instructions I think you can set.

I think it's called instructions.

Yeah,

set custom instructions for the project.

So in the upper right hand
corner in the project, It says,

how should Claude respond?

I said that I'd profiled myself
and I said, before writing a lot of

code, please explain quickly what
you'll be doing before, before I can

confirm or so I can confirm, right?

So basically don't burn those credits
or tokens by writing a shitload of code.

Tell me what you're going to do
first and then I'll approve it.

And even that didn't work all the time.

It did when I asked it bigger
things and it would like bullet

point some features it might do.

You know, it, you know, it would ask me
it was, it was like hit or miss with that.

And I have another one in the instructions
that says when writing code, please

use good inline documentation.

I'm a beginner level developer.

It helps me find the areas you need me to
update because what was happening was it

would suggest those changes to the code.

Like you said, instead of like writing out
800 lines of code every single time, which

was a complete list of the file, it would
say, just update these these sections.

And I'm like, fuck, I don't even
know, where do I find this section,

you know, where the hell is that at?

So, I'm trying to say, look, like,
really document this, and help me

understand where it needs to go later on.

So, again, hit or miss with that, I wish
it was a little bit, a little bit better.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, again, I've had
similar things, and it probably, it

sounds like what you're trying to achieve
is probably more, more robust and more

advanced than what I was trying to
achieve in that video, specifically.

But really, that was like building a I
think that maybe had maybe seven files,

eight files or something like that.

so I'm not sure if there's more, if
there's more to it, but I mean, if you

have more functionality than your files
are just getting bigger, it's more tokens.

It's more decisions.

It's more features.

It's all that sort of stuff.

but I mean, I don't know.

I'm, I'm bullish on it to this
point, cause I think it's pretty

incredible what we can do so far.

But all of the feedback that you're
giving, I'm sure like a lot of other

And like, I don't know, the thing,
the thing with this is the part that

confuses me the most is how you actually
make something like this better.

Like, like I I've, I've, I mean, if
we want to go off topic of coding,

I don't know if you have more on the
coding stuff specifically, but just

like other use cases, I've actually
found a ton of ways that I've used

like Claude specifically and a chat,
CPT and Gemini to certain cases.

Like I have a laundry list of things
now, just the past two months that I've

used this stuff for that has actually
made a difference, I would All of my

workflows and my just thought processes
and the way that I work on things.

Matt: let me just wrap up on
some of this coding stuff.

Cause the, so then, so what happened next
is like, here's the things I don't know.

I'm way out of my league on,
on, on what I'm coding, right?

It's, it's pure JavaScript, you know?

I mean, I'm actually, I can
understand some of it now, right?

Because I've literally been neck deep in
it and it's actually a great education

process, sort of like reminds me of.

learning WordPress all over again,
which is cool, but way out of my league

in terms of like what it's developing.

So I found, an app called cursor.

Have you run into this?

I've

Mark: heard of it.

I haven't used it yet

Matt: because when I was coding,
like when I initially started this

project, I'm like, I got to start like
a whole local development environment.

I haven't done that in years.

And when I did it for
WordPress, WordPress is so easy.

Like it's so, you know, I
guess it's the good and bad of

WordPress because it's so archaic.

It's my SQL, PHP and HTML, right?

And CSS and of course now JavaScript, but
the essence of it is like you can get a

local environment up pretty damn easy.

Whereas with like this stuff.

Yeah, package installers, NPM
install, like you're building all this

stuff, then you have to deploy it.

You have to do all of this
stuff to get this thing going.

And then what are you coding in?

So I've okay.

Hey, hey, Claude, what's
everyone using for coding?

Right?

And they're like, Oh, VS code.

Okay, so I started using VS code.

And then my mind is blowing up because
I'm like, fine, man, I don't even

know how to say like, then I just
feel way out of my league because I'm

like, this thing isn't set up right.

I don't even know if I'm optimized right.

Am I doing this correctly?

and then I started hitting
that wall of Claude.

Now, over the weekend, I
started making a lot of headway.

Things were working.

I built my, what's known
as the Cloudflare worker.

And it was working.

And I could send data to these APIs.

It would talk to other APIs and send
me the information back that I needed.

I was like, okay, I'm making headway.

And then I was like, okay, now
I need to make this a front end.

Because I can't just do
everything through the terminal.

I need to be able to manage
this in a web browser.

And that's when the freaking wheels
fell off because I was just like,

Hey, Claude, build me a react app
that connects up to all these APIs.

I can do this stuff.

And it was just.

It was just a shit storm.

I mean, 48 hours of like trying to just
figure out how to deploy this to cloud

flare is the problem with cloud flare.

I don't know.

Is a problem with my code probably.

Right.

So there's all this stuff happening.

And, I found cursor and I don't
even remember how I found it.

I think I was like, I need to find an
alternative to vs code because I just felt

like, I'm, I just using the wrong tool.

Like, I just can't do this stuff anymore.

And then I found Cursor, and Cursor
integrates directly with Claude.

And the magic is it's not your tokens.

It's their tokens.

So I could just freaking pound
away at this thing and just

be like, here's the 900 lines.

Look at it.

Tell me what's wrong.

All right, give me the update.

Here's another 900 lines.

Like, you know, give me another update.

And that has solved it dramatically.

And basically what it has stopped, what
it has allowed me to do is in, in cursor.

Now this is anyone who's like
a proper dev is like freaking

out flipping tables right now.

But.

I ask it to do something.

It shows me the code like I was
doing in my Claude web browser.

And instead of me copying and pasting it
into the file, you just say, apply it.

And it writes it right in the file, right?

So, I'm just like, oh yeah, all day man.

Like, I just said, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Like, this is all the code I want.

and I finally got to a point where
now I'm not using React anymore.

I'm using another framework called Svelte.

which is like a pure
JavaScript play on it.

It's supposed to be more
efficient, yada, yada.

I don't know.

I'm like watching YouTube
videos while I'm coding.

I am You're not coding.

I'm coding, man.

You're prompting.

You're prompting.

I'm coding.

This is the way that I see it is.

I'm the guy with the idea.

We're working together on this.

It's a partnership.

me, Claude, and, and Cursor.

And I finally got to a point
where I've, I've launched the app.

It's the very basic iterations
of it are, are working.

but Cursor is really the thing that
made me, you know, turn the, turn

the corner, which has allowed me to.

Now I use, so instead of like, working
with like some of like the real inside,

like if a big issue comes up, right, like,
I'm talking about and I'm, I'm asking

it to like help me style the front end.

So instead of doing that, even in
cursor, because you got this tiny

little window, literally, I'll, I'll
start asking chat, GPT and Claude

what their recommendations are.

So now it's like I have two
different people in front of me.

You know, big, big question, right?

Like a big question, like what it was,
should I use Tailwind or should I use

like some other CSS framework, whatever.

And I'll, I'll ask them both,
see what the answers are.

And then I'll aggregate that and
then bring that into a cursor

and be like, okay, here's where I
think I should be going with this.

What do you think?

It'll give me the answer.

And man, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a single
person enterprise is what I am.

Okay.

I'm going to be launching
so many apps, dude.

It's not even going to be funny.

Okay.

All I have to say is
WordPress is in trouble.

Mark: Oh, WordPress is in trouble.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

man, people are gonna
be so mad about this.

no,

Matt: it does help me really appreciate.

Like what wordpress has like really like
even like I'm looking at it now, and

I'm like holy shit There's a lot of like
legacy stuff here, and I can understand

why people who are on the cutting edge
look at wordpress and go That's a joke

like look at that dinosaur over there,
but at the same time as an end user Like,

imagine trying to do, like, imagine, Oh
yeah, AI's gonna change all this stuff.

You can just make your own WordPress.

Ain't gonna happen.

I mean, not anytime soon, and not to
what you can do with WordPress, but it

does also make me appreciate, like, what
we have as, like, this little bottled

up application that is WordPress.

Mark: I got a lot of thoughts.

The first one I have to say,
though, is that I didn't realize

it, It took less than a year.

It took a week for you to be
completely bullish on AI and be

like literally a senior developer.

That's amazing.

I don't know if anybody's
ever done that in a week.

I'm gonna quickly go

Matt: back to the CEO level in
a moment, but I'm just like,

you know, once I figure it out.

Smart, smart.

Mark: Yeah.

Yeah, the one random question that I
have that I don't know if we can really

answer, but it would be good to get
other people from the community to

answer this is, We are not developers.

I wouldn't classify myself.

I don't think you'd classify
yourself as developers, right?

Like we know code here and there,
just from being around, we know what

stuff does, but we've never sat for
eight hours, multiple times per week,

per day, per year to like actually
develop software or anything like that.

We know enough to be dangerous.

And now with Claw, we know
enough to be really dangerous.

So I'm wondering if.

We're that camp, so to speak, like we're
that archetype and we're seeing this

and we're like, Oh shit, we could like
build our own apps and stuff like that.

Or like our own plugins.

And it's like, we know the dangers
kind of, if we're being honest with

ourselves, but we're trying it.

Cause it's interesting.

We're trying to learn.

I wonder if software developers, the other
archetype, if they look at these things

and they're leveraging, I wonder if like
that, that, that, what you just described

there with like Claude and cursor, I don't
know this enough, and I'm sure there's.

Videos and people doing this stuff,
but I don't know if our, our software

developers, you would think that if, if
you put that into a software developer's

hands, like the co pilot from GitHub or,
you know, whatever, or whatever, whatever

the, well, there's tons of them now.

If you gave that to somebody
like, are they just like flying at

like, mock 10 now because that's

Matt: where the biggest wins are for sure.

Yeah.

Mark: You know what I mean?

So it's like, the thing is,
it's not like only we have these

tools, they have the tools too.

So they're not in trouble
or anything like that.

I don't think that by any means.

and they still know what they're doing.

So it's like they can go faster
and they know what they're doing.

So it's like, if they run into
the problems that you're having

and I'm having, then it's like,
Oh, I know exactly what to do.

Boom, boom, boom.

I know exactly what to tell
it to do, dah, dah, dah.

And, and they're off to the races.

Yeah.

Matt: I think that's where
cursor is supposed to really win.

I'm using it from a, I'm using it from.

like it's chat features I feel
like are supposed to be just an

assist literally, whereas I'm
using it to code the whole thing.

They, from all the stuff that I've been
watching and listening to people talk

about how like amazing cursor is, is
because it has like this auto complete

feature, which if you know what you're
doing, speeds it up like that 10 X level

where you can start, like, if you know
the code, you can start writing the code

and then it'll start auto completing the
code it thinks is going to come next.

Mark: Oh wow.

Matt: So.

I don't even know what I'm doing, so I'm
asking it to write stuff for me, and then

that's what I'm, that's how I'm using it.

Whereas like, man, if you know what you're
doing, this thing is, you know, puts

you on Mach 10, and then if you really
have a question, then you can ask AI.

So, yeah, like, it really helps
that kind of person for sure.

Mark: Yeah, I mean, just in general
with the coding stuff, I love that

these tools are available, it's awesome
that they're available to anybody.

I'm sure some people are going
to be like, Well, you shouldn't

be coding your own stuff.

It's like, I mean, I don't
know if you want to play around

and you understand the risks.

Like, in that video I say, like,
I'll give you guys this code, but

do not, do not hold me liable.

Like, this is your own, you
know, use it your own risk.

Like, it's, it's there, but I don't know.

You know, it's got an encryption class
for like the API keys, but like, other

than that, like, I have no idea what
holes you could poke in this thing or

anything like that, so I would always
just say exercise caution there, but it

is pretty incredible what we're able to
do, and seemingly in such a short time,

from when we went from like pretty much
everything being like hand coded, so

to speak, to now, you know, we have, we
can get so much further so much faster.

Us and people doing this professionally.

It's, it's pretty, it's pretty insane.

Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

So how, what other areas are you using
it in outside of content or coding?

Mark: Yeah.

So the other area would be like,
so we're not coders, right?

Like we said, but we are content creators.

And I think that like you
and I are probably similar,

we're similar in that realm.

So it's like, we know ways and we know the
hangups and the limitations that creating

content, like of creating content.

Right.

We don't really know the software side.

So if we switch to this
content side, it's like.

How, how, how, how can we
possibly speed this up?

So I'm going to think of
a bunch of different ways.

The first way this is like, again,
some of these are like small

wins because they're not like
groundbreaking things, but they're

really like actually pretty awesome.

Like if you stack them all up, first thing
is, okay, so we record YouTube videos.

I'm not going to do it in order.

Cause I can't remember off the
top of my head, but I'll just

go from thinking about these.

The first one is like, we
record YouTube videos, right?

And I like to put chapters
in all my YouTube videos.

I was literally doing this.

Like I would watch the whole video
back and put the chapters in.

I don't have to fucking do that anymore.

Like I, I upload the video.

I wait maybe, sometimes it's right away
depending on the length of the video.

I took that whole hour and a half script.

And ChatGPT, I tried to do
this with ChatGPT, but a

while ago, it's not as good.

Claude is way better with like,
pasting things in and maybe it's

just the new model now, like
more, it can just understand more.

So I, I upload the video, I go to the
bottom, show transcript, I copy that

whole thing with the timestamps in it,
I paste that into Claude and I say, Hey,

give me YouTube chapters, one liners for
it, just like formatted perfectly, and

just give me chapters for these videos.

And then I can even say, Hey, get a
little more detailed if it doesn't

give me enough for how it wants to do.

That saves a shit ton of time, if you were
gonna sit there and watch all of that.

And that's just a small win,
like I said, so there's that.

You already mentioned things like
explaining, you could, you could

even say, I literally just tried
this with the last couple of videos.

Let's stick on that.

Just from the transcript, it knows
everything your video is about, right?

And it's an expert at YouTube.

If you tell it, it's an expert at YouTube,
so you can get the subtitles from that.

I'm sorry.

You can get the chapters from that.

You can tell it, give me 10
really good titles for this video.

Based on just your knowledge of YouTube.

So, and then I'm not saying
like copy and paste that part.

Like, I just need the ideas.

Cause I'm not creative
enough to think of the ideas.

So like, give me the titles.

I even experimented with this.

I said, you already mentioned the
description and stuff like that.

So you could obviously get that, but
the, I even experimented with, Hey, I

know you for Claude, I know you can't.

I know you can't generate images, okay?

And we could talk about images cause
that's like kind of another modal

of this piece that's good and bad.

Very hit or miss more than text.

I know you can't generate images,
Claude, but can you prompt?

Some, another tool to generate a really
good thumbnail for this, or at least

give me some ideas and stuff like that,
or what a good thumbnail would be.

It does it, it doesn't do it great.

Cause then I copied that.

I took it over to Grok on a X cause
it, cause I think Grok uses flux, which

is probably like one of the best image
generator generative things now, one

of them and I put it over there and it
didn't give me great stuff, but it gave me

something that like, you know, maybe would
spark a little bit, you know what I mean?

But like, even with text, you can kind
of get some ideas for imagery and things.

So.

Those are just some of the ways, like
in YouTube, that I've sped up and at

least gave myself way more ideas for
things because, you know, those things

are hard to come up with on your own.

I mean, and it's, I don't know.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, as an
assist, it definitely helps.

it still hasn't ever really
knocked it out of the park for

me for, for titles and stuff.

I think it's still very baseline, but
it does bring in, Like a different

perspective and what I'll do is like ask
like here's my here's the type of viewer.

I'm hoping to To watch
this video Whatever.

It might be freelancer WordPress beginner
or whatever It might be the keyword is

and then like what would appeal to them
and I and I use that as like ideation

You know and other like like other
words, you know, like what are other

words I can use that are our keywords
for this Yeah, all that stuff you know,

works great for the chapters, because
I use Descript, Descript just has

chapters, a chapter thing built right in.

So you just click it and it's
still all AI chat GPT driven.

But, you know, I've always found it to
be a little bit more accurate because

it has the whole video file, and it
just, whatever, just does a better job.

but, yeah, often I'll use, I'll use
that and I use whisper AI as a, I

think it only runs on Mac though.

so Whisper AI, or Whisper
Transcription is what it's called.

on Mac.

It's a Mac app.

And, you can just drop in your video
or, MP3 file, or any file, any media

file, and ask it to transcribe it
and then run the same commands on it.

It's just like a local app.

I'll use that from time to time.

Mark: Yeah, the other thing I try
to do, if you haven't done it,

As much recently as I take the
transcription because it's not great.

I mean, maybe Descript already
does this, but the transcript

isn't great from YouTube.

like it's the words, but
it's not formatted well.

So like the idea would be to take
that text and put it on your website.

So you could index that text.

I'm not even sure as we move forward
if that's even going to be completely

necessary because it's probably going
to just You know, somehow get, you know,

SEO juice and ranking and any sort of
index ability from like the actual words

in the YouTube video at this point.

But that's just another random thing.

yeah, there's a, there's a lot of
trying to think of anything else

that I've, that I've tried to, I just
literally hate making thumbnails.

So I'm waiting for a really
good thumbnail thing.

I've explored, explored some
GPTs, custom GPTs for that.

but, Yeah, I don't know this is all
kind of like very interesting and

slightly kind of concerning at the same
time because like at some point You

know, I mean, I don't know if you've
I don't know if you've Experimented

with 11 labs and any sort of image
or not not image but like voice like

you can very very soon we're gonna be
able to just like Make our own stuff.

Like let's just generate our own things
just from all of the the voice data we

have of ourselves the the Video data
we have of ourselves and then all the

any LLM stuff that we've put together
So it's gonna it is gonna get weird.

I'm just hoping it doesn't get weird
super soon or we could at least

capitalize on it It's a lot of stuff.

Matt: So are you still gonna
build out that that plug in and

continue like making plugins?

For like sites that you're
building out like what's the

future for developing plugins?

Mark: I mean, so that one
specifically was, I was trying to

create a automated via the YouTube
API, just like automatically

know when I'm live on my website.

And I just created like custom
it's an, it checks the YouTube API.

It says, are you live or not?

It gives a couple pieces of data that
it pulls in, like the YouTube URL.

And stuff like that.

And then it, it can, it integrates
specifically with bricks to like use

all those things with dynamic tags
and conditions works great, perfect.

And in order to do all of that, I
would have either needed to hire a

developer or find a plugin that did it.

So I think for very niche things
like that, you're definitely,

Probably very well off doing that.

I'm thinking of, if you do like an
analysis on like the ROI of doing

something like that, just even personal
ROI, like nothing's going to come

along and like fix that right away.

I would love to have a larger conversation
on like where this is all going,

because I don't, like I love WordPress
and I love websites, but I don't think

we're going to be on websites for
the rest of our lives necessarily.

I think there's going
to be some more to that.

just in like the different ways
that we operate with things.

Because to go back to, if you think
about like the Google search era versus

now the AI prompting era, I don't know
about you, but there have been times very

recently where I have not gone to Google.

I've gone to like a chat GPT or a
quad because I want, I don't want

to go search for an answer anymore.

I want the answer to kind of like
come to me and I don't mean like

I'm just going to take the answer.

It's like it has all that information so
we can explain it to you in a way that

you're actually asking particularly for.

I don't, I'm sure you've done this.

Like you go and you have
a very specific problem.

So then you have to search Google and
you have to go through like 10 links

to find like maybe what the answer is.

But with now it's like, it does
that step for you in a lot of ways.

And the other big thing that I do,
this is one of the things I don't

like about quad just yet, but I'm
sure they're going to have it.

I love chat GPT and Gemini, which is
Google's for the conversational, cause

you know, I hate text and this is a
lot of reading that we're doing so far.

So like, I'll like actually have a
conversation with it and I'll be like,

Hey, what do you think about this topic?

Like I'll do this in preparation
for like, you know, any sort of

podcasting debate, like live topics.

Like, Hey, you know, like what do
you think about like open source?

Do you think that's a good thing?

A bad thing or whatever you can
kind of like get a lot of ideas

and a lot of different things that.

You would have had to go read like a
bunch of different people's opinions,

but now it it's aggregated all that
and it's just thrown in at you.

I'm not saying just take it as face value.

I'm saying like you can almost do like
a little mock conversation or mock

debate debate with these things and
then you can do it from both sides too.

And then you have all the perspectives
and then you can create your own

perspective and then you could.

You know, go into the content or the,
or the show or whatever with that.

I mean, I've literally done that before
just because of the ease of that.

Like it's just, I'm just
talking to my phone.

Like it's, it's so easy.

Matt: Yeah.

Yeah.

it's, it's certainly.

you know, some, it's many different
ways, you know, to, to use it.

I was also thinking too, like while I was.

Using cursor, I'd be like, man, if I
could just talk to this thing, which

it probably even has, I don't, I don't
know if I could just like talk to this

and, and explain what I, what I want.

but I still have a lot of like
uncertainty on, you know, what,

what the answers are going to be.

even from a, you know, I don't know.

I like to see a ton of options.

I don't mind sifting through it as long
as that the options I have are, are, are

close to, you know, giving me the answer.

You know, argue if Google
even still does that anymore.

I don't know.

but I don't mind like sifting
through that, through that

stuff, but I totally get it.

Like, just give me the answer.

I signed up for, only because Kevin Rose,
from Dignation, he has, he's, I guess

an advisor or his, the VC firm that he
works for is invested in perplexity.

and you could get a free year.

Of Perplexity Pro, if you
were on his email list.

I've heard a lot of people talk about
it, like, oh, it's like, you know,

search results and all this stuff,
and like, that's supposed to be the

thing that really crushes Google.

You know, I did it for, for this
project that I'm working on.

I mean, it didn't really give
me anything that Claude and

ChatGPT wasn't already giving me.

I mean, it's a cool interface, and I'm
sure it's like, if I was doing more, it

would give me some feedback, better stuff.

But once again, I'm just like,
I'm not, I haven't tapped in to

the full potential of this stuff.

you know, effectively, I feel
like I'm just getting started,

but that's where that is.

Mark: we're all just
getting started, Matt.

You know, it's kind of early.

I'll just getting started

Matt: and we're all just on the
way out all at the same time.

Mark: You know, I, that
is a larger, larger topic.

and I don't, I'm sure this has already
happened though, kind of in history

and waves, obviously not AI related,
but again, like with so many other

things, I think we're just going to
have to continue to, I think that if

we're talking about this now, we are
perhaps potentially the best position.

So I'm trying to get more people, you
know, like just from this type of content,

we can get more people think about
this and understanding that it's real.

The hope would be that we can, continue
to leverage it for as much as we need to

leverage it and then we could continue
to evolve and adapt to Obviously fill

in the gaps that like this thing, you
know these types of things are going to

do like we could there's always going
to be a reason to You know continue to

try to innovate and do other things.

So I don't know.

It's going to be interesting though.

Regardless.

Yeah, we'll see what we'll see what
the future holds with With all of this.

It's

Matt: the WP Minute.

The WP Minute dot com slash subscribe.

Still not powered by AI yet.

Yet.

Yes.

Maybe.

Someday.

hit that hit that newsletter.

I've I think I mentioned this
to you a couple weeks ago.

I switched over to ConvertKit.

It's going to be kit.

Is it, has it already?

Excuse me.

Sorry.

It's just, it's just kit now.

That's right.

It's just kit, kit.

com.

one, because this is a semi tangent to
what we're talking about today, but,

you know, everything that happened with
WordPress and, just my, I've always had

this feeling anyway, but like everything,
especially with like WordPress and

understanding, like who, Where you're
doing your business, like who owns that

business that you're doing business with?

and yeah, I was running
on MailChimp for a while.

It was fine.

I never really loved like making the
newsletters there but I switched to kit

because I Had nathan on the show many
many years ago and he'll dm me every once

in a while to ask a couple questions And
I was like, yeah, you know i'll use it.

We got a new add on for it for
gravity forms You and so far, so good.

consolidated two MailChimp accounts.

It was a little bit of a pain in the neck.

because it flagged me for like,
where did you get these users from?

And it's like, well I merged
two, I had two different lists.

My mat report list and my WP minute list.

And I was always mailing both.

So I just consolidate into one
and it flagged a bunch of stuff.

but crafting the templates there.

Much easier, happier about that.

So if you do receive the email
and you have any feedback, hit

reply on the next email that I
send, let me know what you think.

Mark, what about you?

What are you, what are you up to?

Where can folks find you?

Mark: just trying to double, triple,
quadruple down on content on YouTube.

You can just go to mjs.

bio.

You can sign up for my newsletter.

All my social links and
everything like that are there.

Just trying to provide as much
value as possible to you guys.

So appreciate it.

Matt: Awesome stuff.

Thanks for watching everybody.

See you.

Or you'll hear us in the next episode.