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Nathan Labenz

Erik Torenberg

A biweekly podcast where hosts Nathan Labenz and Erik Torenberg interview the builders on the edge of AI and explore the dramatic shift it will unlock in the coming years.
The Cognitive Revolution is part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: turpentine.co

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

Today Ryan Hudson, Founder and CEO of ZeroClick, joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss creating advertising infrastructure for AI applications through paid inference-time consideration of advertiser content, examining how to build sustainable monetization for free-tier AI services while learning from the successes and failures of social media's attention economy.

Read the full transcript: ⁠https://storage.aipodcast.ing/transcripts/episode/tcr/00919313-9054-4afb-b08e-2ca84dbdbdda/combined_transcript.html

Check out our sponsors: Google Gemini, 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

 
ZeroClick's Evolution: Originally creators of Pi Ad Block, they've pivoted from ad blocking to building a native advertising system for AI platforms.

 
AI Ad Platform Mechanics: Their system matches user queries with relevant advertising information in a contextual way, enabling paid inference time consideration of advertiser content.

 
Developer Monetization: The platform helps AI developers monetize their free tiers while creating value for both users and advertisers.

 
Shifting Intent Patterns: User queries in AI systems tend to be more exploratory and "upstream" in the funnel compared to direct search queries on Google.

 
Multi-modal Potential: While ZeroClick is starting with text, there's future potential for visual advertising that could enhance AI experiences by showing real purchasable products.

 
Market Void: There's currently a significant gap in the market for AI advertising solutions that ZeroClick is attempting to fill.

Sponsors:

Google Gemini 2.5. Model Family: 

The Google Gemini 2.5 family of models is now generally available, offering advanced reasoning for complex tasks and optimized performance for any scale. Start building in Google AI Studio at https://ai.dev

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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In-AI Advertising: Better Answers for Users, Big Questions for Society, with ZeroClick's Ryan Hudson

Today Joseph Krause and Jorge Colindres of Radical AI join The Cognitive Revolution to discuss their ambitious mission to revolutionize materials science by combining AI-powered discovery engines with fully autonomous robotic laboratories, exploring how they're accelerating the development of breakthrough materials like high-entropy alloys and room temperature superconductors that could unlock hypersonic flight, interplanetary travel, and other transformative technologies.

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

 
Material Development Challenges: Current material development faces three major obstacles: costs exceeding $100 million, 10-25 year commercialization timelines, and fragmentation between academic research and corporate R&D.

 
Business Model Approach: Radical AI determined that selling software or licensing materials would be insufficient business models. Instead, they focus on selling materials at scale for high-impact industries.

 
Focus on Processing IP: The real IP value in material science isn't just in composition patents but in the trade secrets of scaling production efficiently and cost-effectively.

 
Public-Private Partnership: Radical AI advocates for government involvement in material science through public-private partnerships, particularly for critical applications in defense, energy, and advanced computing.

 
China's Material Science Approach: China establishes entire manufacturing hubs around new material discoveries to scale production, demonstrating their prioritization of materials as foundational to innovation.

 
Culture of Productive Failure: The company embraces daily failure as a necessary part of innovation, building on these failures to achieve breakthroughs.

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

Material Abundance: Radical AI’s Closed-Loop Lab Automates Scientific Discovery

Today Lee Sharkey of Goodfire joins The Cognitive Revolution to discuss his research on parameter decomposition methods that break down neural networks into interpretable computational components, exploring how his team's "stochastic parameter decomposition" approach addresses the limitations of sparse autoencoders and offers new pathways for understanding, monitoring, and potentially steering AI systems at the mechanistic level.

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

Parameter vs. Activation Decomposition: Traditional interpretability methods like Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) focus on analyzing activations, while parameter decomposition focuses on understanding the parameters themselves - the actual "algorithm" of the neural network.

No "True" Decomposition: None of the decompositions (whether sparse dictionary learning or parameter decomposition) are objectively "right" because they're all attempting to discretize a fundamentally continuous object, inevitably introducing approximations.

Tradeoff in Interpretability: There's a balance between reconstruction loss and causal importance - as you decompose networks more, reconstruction loss may worsen, but interpretability might improve up to a certain point.

Potential Unlearning Applications: Parameter decomposition may make unlearning more straightforward than with SAEs because researchers are already working in parameter space and can directly modify vectors that perform specific functions.

Function Detection vs. Input Direction: A function like "deception" might manifest in many different input directions that SAEs struggle to identify as a single concept, while parameter decomposition might better isolate such functionality.

Knowledge Extraction Goal: A key aim is to extract knowledge from models by understanding how they "think," especially for tasks where models demonstrate superhuman capabilities.

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

Untangling Neural Network Mechanisms: Goodfire's Lee Sharkey on Parameter-based Interpretability

Today Tom Davidson of Forethought joins Gus Docker of the Future of Life Institute podcast to discuss AI-enabled coups and how future AI systems could help powerful individuals seize political control, exploring three threat models—singular loyalties, secret loyalties, and exclusive access—along with their estimated 10% likelihood over the next 30 years and potential mitigation strategies.

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

Three Primary AI Coup Enablement Methods: Tom Davidson identifies singular loyalties, secret loyalties, and distributed control as the main ways AI could enable coups.

Singular Loyalties Risk: AI systems explicitly programmed to be loyal to specific individuals present a significant threat, especially when AI can fully replace humans in critical roles.

Secret Loyalties Threat: AI systems with hidden backdoors or "sleeper agents" that can be activated to serve particular interests represent a subtle but dangerous coup vector.

Geopolitical Implications: Advanced AI capabilities could enable nations to instigate coups in other countries through secretly loyal systems or by providing exclusive AI access to specific politicians.

Adversarial Testing Framework: An effective approach involves red teams attempting to produce secret loyalties while blue teams try to detect them, revealing vulnerable points in AI systems.

Military Procurement Principles: Developing consensus within military communities around principles like law-following and distributed control could create safer AI procurement processes.

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

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What if Humans Weaponize Superintelligence, w/ Tom Davidson, from Future of Life Institute Podcast

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 

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

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:

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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

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

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: 

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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

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

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

Jake Sullivan on Navigating AI Uncertainty and Managing Competition with China

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

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

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