{"id":3835,"date":"2026-06-24T13:03:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T13:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/podcast-if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T13:03:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T13:03:21","slug":"podcast-if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/podcast-if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast: If AI Is Sentient Then So Is \u2018Age of Empires II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We start this week with Matthew\u2019s story about a fascinating paper that argues if LLMs are sentient, then by those metrics so is the classic game Age of Empires II. After the break, Matthew tells us about a wild story out of Texas with a data center being built on land that was donated to be a park. In the subscribers-only section, we talk hacking and basketball.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the weekly podcast on\u00a0Apple Podcasts,\u00a0Spotify, or\u00a0YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode&#8217;s bonus content and to power our journalism.\u00a0If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player. \u2060If AI Is Sentient Then So Is \u2018Age of Empires II\u2019\u2060\u2060A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Massive Data Center Instead\u2060\u2060Hackers Publish Knicks and Madison Square Garden Data Online\u2060\u2060Madison Square Garden Made Dossier on Activists Who Opposed Facial Recognition\u2060<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div>A surreal but compelling LLM experiment with Age of Empires II; how a Texas city sold land meant for a park to a data center company; and the Madison Square Garden hack.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-and-ml","category-podcast","tag-ai"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Podcast: If AI Is Sentient Then So Is \u2018Age of Empires II - Imperative Business Ventures Limited<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/podcast-if-ai-is-sentient-then-so-is-age-of-empires-ii\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast: If AI Is Sentient Then So Is \u2018Age of Empires II - Imperative Business Ventures Limited\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A surreal but compelling LLM experiment with Age of Empires II; 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