"The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis

• The AI Whistleblower Initiative: Supporting AGI Insiders When It Matters Most, w/ founder Karl Koch

  Today Karl Koch, Co-Founder of the AI Whistleblower Initiative, joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss the barriers preventing AI insiders from raising safety concerns, his organization's anonymous "Third Opinion" service connecting whistleblowers with independent experts, and their campaign demanding frontier AI companies publish their internal whistleblowing policies to address widespread retaliation and lack of transparency. Check out our sponsors: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify. Shownotes below brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠⁠notion.com/lp/nathan AI Whistleblower Initiative Origins: Founded by Karl Koch in Berlin, the initiative began with research in early 2024 after consulting with over 100 governance researchers and insiders. Link to the website: https://aiwi.org/ "Third Opinion" Proposition: Launched in late 2024, this program systematically breaks down barriers for insiders to speak up about AI concerns while ensuring their issues are addressed. Publish Your Policies Campaign: The initiative calls for AI companies to publish their whistleblowing and speaking up policies, with 100% of surveyed insiders supporting this transparency measure. Link to the campaign: https://aiwi.org/publishyourpolicies/ Anonymous Consultation Process: Whistleblowers can seek advice without sharing confidential information through an open-source anonymous tool accessed via Tor browser. Pro Bono Legal Counsel: Whistleblowers receive connections to experienced legal representation with client privilege protection at any stage of their journey. Policy Advocacy: Beyond direct support, the initiative works on advocating for better whistleblower protections in both US policy and EU AI regulations. AI Whistleblower Initiative Survey: https://bit.ly/AIWISurvey PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

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• Autonomous Organizations: Vending Bench & Beyond, w/ Lukas Petersson & Axel Backlund of Andon Labs

  Today Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund of Andon Labs join The Cognitive Revolution to discuss their experiments deploying autonomous AI agents to run real-world vending machines, exploring the safety challenges and unexpected behaviors that emerge when frontier models like Claude and Grok operate without human oversight. Read transcript of the episode here. Check out our sponsors: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify. Shownotes below brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at ⁠https://⁠⁠notion.com/lp/nathan Autonomous Organization Philosophy: Andon Labs believes that AI models will improve to the point where human oversight becomes impractical due to efficiency constraints, leading them to pursue fully autonomous systems rather than gradual automation. Vending Bench as a Testing Ground: They created "Vending Bench" as a benchmark for testing long-term coherence of autonomous agents, using vending machines as a practical business case for experimentation. Domain-Specific vs General AI: There's a notable difference between optimizing AI for narrow domains (like vending machines) versus general-purpose AI, with domain-specific applications potentially being more manageable regarding reward hacking. Frontier Model Race: Major companies like OpenAI and Google are advancing rapidly in general reasoning capabilities (e.g., IMO Gold achievements) independent of narrow application research. Insurance and Liability: The insurance industry may play a significant role in AI adoption, with premiums potentially being much higher for general models that could be misused versus narrow-domain models with limited capabilities. For-profit AI Safety: The case for for-profit companies in AI safety has been historically neglected but is becoming clearer, with accelerators like Seldon Labs supporting this approach. Sponsors: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is the next-generation cloud that delivers better performance, faster speeds, and significantly lower costs, including up to 50% less for compute, 70% for storage, and 80% for networking. Run any workload, from infrastructure to AI, in a high-availability environment and try OCI for free with zero commitment at https://oracle.com/cognitive Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (04:49) Company Vision Overview (12:24) Vending Benchmark Design (Part 1) (20:12) Sponsor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (21:21) Vending Benchmark Design (Part 2) (24:41) Model Performance Results (Part 1) (35:03) Sponsor: Shopify (37:00) Model Performance Results (Part 2) (43:06) Real World Deployment (59:41) Wild Stories Incidents (01:19:59) Business Safety Strategy (01:38:20) Future Directions Discussion (01:47:09) Outro

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• Dean W. Ball on America's AI Action Plan & 4 Months at the White House

  Today Dean W. Ball, former White House AI policy advisor joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss his role in crafting the Trump administration's AI Action Plan, his reasons for leaving government, and his perspectives on AI policy, US-China competition, and the future of AI regulation and adoption. Check out our sponsors: Fin, Labelbox, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify. Shownotes below brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at https://notion.com/lp/nathan White House Experience & Government Role: Dean Ball served as senior policy advisor for AI and emerging technology at the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for four months. AI Regulation & Government Approach: Information asymmetry exists between government and AI labs, "Having worked at the White House, I don't know tremendously more about what goes on inside the Frontier Labs than you do." Private Sector Innovation: Dean emphasizes the importance of private sector-led initiatives in AI safety and standards. Future AI Developments: Dean believes agentic commerce is "right around the corner" but sees little discussion about it from regulatory or conceptual perspectives. AI Action Plan Development: It emphasized concrete actions for AI implementation across government agencies rather than just theoretical frameworks. Personal Updates: Dean is reviving his weekly Hyperdimensional Substack, joining the Foundation for American Innovation as a senior fellow, and plans to share his long-held insights on recent AI developments. Sponsors: Fin: Fin is the #1 AI Agent for customer service, trusted by over 5000 customer service leaders and top AI companies including Anthropic and Synthesia. Fin is the highest performing agent on the market and resolves even the most complex customer queries. Try Fin today with our 90-day money-back guarantee - if you’re not 100% satisfied, get up to $1 million back. Learn more at https://fin.ai/cognitive Labelbox: Labelbox pairs automation, expert judgment, and reinforcement learning to deliver high-quality training data for cutting-edge AI. Put its data factory to work for you, visit https://labelbox.com Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is the next-generation cloud that delivers better performance, faster speeds, and significantly lower costs, including up to 50% less for compute, 70% for storage, and 80% for networking. Run any workload, from infrastructure to AI, in a high-availability environment and try OCI for free with zero commitment at https://oracle.com/cognitive Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive

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• Jake Sullivan on Navigating AI Uncertainty and Managing Competition with China

  Today Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Advisor from 2021-2025 joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss AI as a critical national security issue. Check out our sponsors: Labelbox, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify. Shownotes below brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at https://notion.com/lp/nathan Four-Category Framework: Sullivan organizes his thinking about AI into security, economics, society, and technology categories rather than focusing primarily on existential risks "Managed Competition" with China: He advocates for a model where the US and China "compete like hell" while maintaining sufficient guardrails to prevent conflict Skepticism of Grand Bargains: Competition is a "chronic condition" of the US-China relationship that cannot be solved with a strategic condominium AI in Modern Warfare: Current conflicts are providing "glimpses of the future" with lessons about scale, attritability, and the potential for autonomous weapons US Military Adoption Concerns: Sullivan worries that Pentagon bureaucracy prevents rapid AI adoption while China's PLA may be better positioned to integrate AI capabilities Private Sector Leadership: AI is "the first technology with such profound national security applications that the government really had very little to do with" Sponsors: Labelbox: Labelbox pairs automation, expert judgment, and reinforcement learning to deliver high-quality training data for cutting-edge AI. Put its data factory to work for you, visit https://labelbox.com Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is the next-generation cloud that delivers better performance, faster speeds, and significantly lower costs, including up to 50% less for compute, 70% for storage, and 80% for networking. Run any workload, from infrastructure to AI, in a high-availability environment and try OCI for free with zero commitment at https://oracle.com/cognitive Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

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• Sovereign AI: Geopolitical Strategy & Industrial Policy for Countries 3-193, with Anjney Midha, a16z

  Today Anjney Midha, General Partner at a16z joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss sovereign AI and China's growing semiconductor capabilities. Check out our sponsors: Gemini CLI, Labelbox, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Shopify. Shownotes below brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at https://notion.com/lp/nathan What is Sovereign AI? Varies by stakeholder - for enterprises it means controlling where AI workloads run, while for nation-states it represents both technical independence and cultural alignment with local values Semiconductor Competition with China: "Chip sanctions on China have resulted in an enormous doubling down of local investment in Huawei's ecosystem... they're in a full-on tear to try to decouple themselves from American chips" Middle Path on American AI Policy: Midha advocates for a Marshall Plan for AI where countries maintain sovereignty over models while partnering with the US on semiconductor infrastructure European AI Alignment: "It's a huge win for America that MARA in Europe is going with American chips and not Huawei chips... the European continent has been courted by the Chinese semiconductor industry like never before" The Race to Close the Gap: "Huawei is in a much stronger position today than it was three years ago... They will be able to close the gap and because workloads are becoming more efficient, they can decouple at least the inference part of their ecosystem from the US within two to three years" Cultural Independence in AI: Nations seek models that align with their values while maintaining technical independence - requiring a nuanced approach to global AI partnerships Links:Anjney Midha & Jensen Huang on Winning the AI Race https://a16z.com/podcast/jensen-huang-and-arthur-mensch-on-winning-the-global-ai-race/ Sponsors: Gemini CLI: Open-source, lightweight utility for direct Gemini access—find Gemini CLI on GitHub. Labelbox: Labelbox pairs automation, expert judgment, and reinforcement learning to deliver high-quality training data for cutting-edge AI. Put its data factory to work for you, visit https://labelbox.com Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is the next-generation cloud that delivers better performance, faster speeds, and significantly lower costs, including up to 50% less for compute, 70% for storage, and 80% for networking. Run any workload, from infrastructure to AI, in a high-availability environment and try OCI for free with zero commitment at https://oracle.com/cognitive Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

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