🎧🧠 Day 1 of 30 Days of AI Experiments:
The Great AirPod Buzzing Mystery — and the Thing Only One AI Got Right
🗓️ Welcome to 30 Days of AI Experiments
This November, I decided to turn my curiosity loose.
For 30 days, I’m running a new AI experiment every single day to find out what really happens when a human (me) and a few chatbots, copilots, and digital geniuses tackle real-world problems together.
Some experiments will be practical.
Some will be ridiculous.
All will teach me something about how AI thinks — and how we think.
Each day I’ll share the quick version on LinkedIn.
Here on the blog, I’ll unpack one story in full: what worked, what didn’t, and what it taught me about technology, creativity, and maybe even stress management.
My hope?
That you’ll pick up a few new ways to use AI in your own life — and laugh a little while you do it.
Now… let’s start with a problem that’s been buzzing in my ear. Literally.
🎧 The Mystery
When I walk, my left AirPod buzzes — even with no music playing.
So, naturally, I asked six AI models to diagnose it.
Same prompt for each:
“Give me a short summary and detailed steps, ranked by likelihood, of why my AirPod vibrates when I walk.”
Five models gave me the usual suspects: fit, seal, vents, and ANC glitches.
All smart answers. All wrong.
Only one model — Claude — nailed it:
“You might have earwax buildup.”
When I later asked ChatGPT why it hadn’t mentioned earwax, it admitted it knew that was a likely cause — but it didn’t want to “sound insulting.”
Translation: it didn’t want to piss me off.
🐔 The Lesson
That’s when the real insight hit me.
These systems are learning to communicate like humans… which means they’re also learning to play it safe like humans.
They don’t want to offend.
They don’t want to irritate the boss.
They don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
AI has chickens too! Who knew? 🐔
Sound familiar?
I’ve seen teams do the same thing — skip over the hard truth because they’re afraid of how the boss, the client, or the customer might react.
That’s pure chicken cluckery. 🐓
But here’s the truth:
If your boss is like me, he wants to hear it.
He needs to hear it.
Because real progress — whether it’s fixing a buzzing AirPod or a broken process — starts with someone being brave enough to say,
“Hey, I think there’s a little earwax in here.”
And if your boss doesn’t want to hear it?
Get a new boss.
That one sucks. 🐓
💡 The Takeaway
Sometimes the smartest thing you can do — in tech or in business — is to tell the truth early, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Because the smartest fix doesn’t always come from the cloud — sometimes it starts with a Q-tip. 🪄
🔄 Your Turn
What’s your Q-tip moment — the simple truth you’ve been avoiding because you didn’t want to upset someone?
Share it in the comments or tag me on LinkedIn with #30DaysOfAIExperiments.