Into AI Safety
The Into AI Safety podcast aims to make it easier for everyone, regardless of background, to get meaningfully involved with conversations about the rules and regulations governing AI research, development, deployment, and use. It covers topics related to artificial intelligence safety and governance. Additional resources and show notes are available at kairos.fm/intoaisafety.
Episodes
Mapping Civilization's Resilience Gaps w/ Dr. Evan Miyazono
Dr. Evan Miyazono joins Jacob to talk about his path from quantum networking and Protocol Labs to founding Atlas Computing. They discuss why Atlas moved away from formal methods research and toward what Evan calls “field strategy”: identifying important problems, figuring out what interventions could actually address them, and finding the people best positioned to make them happen. The co
Pretraining Safety w/ Ethan Roland
What if the safest AI models weren't built by adding guardrails after training, but by shaping what gets learned in the first place? Ethan Roland, senior alignment researcher at AE Studio and first author on an ICML 2026 spotlight paper, joins Jacob to talk about gradient routing, a technique that routes dangerous capabilities into isolated parts of a model's architecture where they can b
Reclaiming UBI in the AI Age w/ Joe Williams
Today's episode does double duty as an interview and an announcement. Joe Williams, host of the new Kairos.fm show "Beyond the Paycheck: Reclaiming the Case for UBI in the Age of AI," joins Jacob to talk about his background as a freelance translator and how AI quietly dismantled his livelihood in 2025. From there the conversation expands into whether this moment is really different from
Building Asymmetric Defense w/ Zainab Majid
Zainab Majid, co-founder of Asymmetric Security, joins Jacob for a conversation on the intersection between AI Safety and cybersecurity, as well as the future of digital forensics. Drawing from years of incident response work, she explains how cyber attacks actually unfold, why AI is changing both offense and defense, and how her team is building AI-native tools to investigate breaches fa
Drawing Red Lines w/ Su Cizem
Technology has been moving faster than policy for some time now, and the advent of AI isn't changing that, so what can we do to maintain safety despite uncertainty? Su Cizem has spent the last few years trying to answer that question. As an analyst at the Future Society, she works on global AI governance, specifically on building international consensus around AI red lines: the thresholds
Thinking Through "Digital Minds" w/ Jacy Reese-Anthis
Jacy Reese-Anthis, founder of Sentience Institute and researcher at Stanford, began his journey working for animal welfare, but is now finishing up his PhD with research in many different AI subfields at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, social science, and machine learning. While this may seem like an odd jump at first, Jacy shares how his work has all been centered around th
Scaling AI Safety Through Mentorship w/ Dr. Ryan Kidd
What does it actually take to build a successful AI safety organization? I'm joined by Dr. Ryan Kidd, who has co-led MATS from a small pilot program to one of the field's premier talent pipelines. In this episode, he reveals the low-hanging fruit in AI safety field-building that most people are missing: the amplifier archetype.I pushed Ryan on some hard questions, from balancing funder pr
Sobering Up on AI Progress w/ Dr. Sean McGregor
Sean McGregor and I discuss about why evaluating AI systems has become so difficult; we cover everything from the breakdown of benchmarking, how incentives shape safety work, and what approaches like BenchRisk (his recent paper at NeurIPS) and AI auditing aim to fix as systems move into the real world. We also talk about his history and journey in AI safety, including his PhD on ML for pu
Against 'The Singularity' w/ Dr. David Thorstad
Philosopher Dr. David Thorstad tears into one of AI safety's most influential arguments: the singularity hypothesis. We discuss why the idea of recursive self-improvement leading to superintelligence doesn't hold up under scrutiny, how these arguments have redirected hundreds of millions in funding away from proven interventions, and why people keep backpedaling to weaker versions when ch
Getting Agentic w/ Alistair Lowe-Norris
Alistair Lowe-Norris, Chief Responsible AI Officer at Iridius and co-host of The Agentic Insider podcast, joins to discuss AI compliance standards, the importance of narrowly scoping systems, and how procurement requirements could encourage responsible AI adoption across industries. We explore the gap between the empty promises companies provide and actual safety practices, as well as the
Growing BlueDot's Impact w/ Li-Lian Ang
I'm joined by my good friend, Li-Lian Ang, first hire and product manager at BlueDot Impact. We discuss how BlueDot has evolved from their original course offerings to a new "defense-in-depth" approach, which focuses on three core threat models: reduced oversight in high risk scenarios (e.g. accelerated warfare), catastrophic terrorism (e.g. rogue actors with bioweapons), and the concentr
Layoffs to Leadership w/ Andres Sepulveda Morales
Andres Sepulveda Morales joins me to discuss his journey from three tech layoffs to founding Red Mage Creative and leading the Fort Collins chapter of the Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group (RMAIIG). We explore the current tech job market, AI anxiety in nonprofits, dark patterns in AI systems, and building inclusive tech communities that welcome diverse perspectives.Reach out to Andres on h
Getting Into PauseAI w/ Will Petillo
Will Petillo, onboarding team lead at PauseAI, joins me to discuss the grassroots movement advocating for a pause on frontier AI model development. We explore PauseAI's strategy, talk about common misconceptions Will hears, and dig into how diverse perspectives still converge on the need to slow down AI development.Will's LinksPersonal blog on AIHis mindmap of the AI x-risk debateGame dem
Making Your Voice Heard w/ Tristan & Felix de Simone
I am joined by Tristan Williams and Felix de Simone to discuss their work on the potential of constituent communication, specifically in the context of AI legislation. These two worked as part of an AI Safety Camp team to understand whether or not it would be useful for more people to be sharing their experiences, concerns, and opinions with their government representative (hint, it is).C
INTERVIEW: Scaling Democracy w/ (Dr.) Igor Krawczuk
The almost Dr. Igor Krawczuk joins me for what is the equivalent of 4 of my previous episodes. We get into all the classics: eugenics, capitalism, philosophical toads... Need I say more?If you're interested in connecting with Igor, head on over to his website, or check out placeholder for thesis (it isn't published yet).Because the full show notes have a whopping 115 additional links, I'l
INTERVIEW: StakeOut.AI w/ Dr. Peter Park (3)
As always, the best things come in 3s: dimensions, musketeers, pyramids, and... 3 installments of my interview with Dr. Peter Park, an AI Existential Safety Post-doctoral Fellow working with Dr. Max Tegmark at MIT.As you may have ascertained from the previous two segments of the interview, Dr. Park cofounded StakeOut.AI along with Harry Luk and one other cofounder whose name has been remo
INTERVIEW: StakeOut.AI w/ Dr. Peter Park (2)
Join me for round 2 with Dr. Peter Park, an AI Existential Safety Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Max Tegmark at MIT. Dr. Park was a cofounder of StakeOut.AI, a non-profit focused on making AI go well for humans, along with Harry Luk and one other individual, whose name has been removed due to requirements of her current position.In addition to the normal links, I wanted to include t
MINISODE: Restructure Vol. 2
UPDATE: Contrary to what I say in this episode, I won't be removing any episodes that are already published from the podcast RSS feed.After getting some advice and reflecting more on my own personal goals, I have decided to shift the direction of the podcast towards accessible content regarding "AI" instead of the show's original focus. I will still be releasing what I am calling research
INTERVIEW: StakeOut.AI w/ Dr. Peter Park (1)
Dr. Peter Park is an AI Existential Safety Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Max Tegmark at MIT. In conjunction with Harry Luk and one other cofounder, he founded StakeOut.AI, a non-profit focused on making AI go well for humans.00:54 - Intro03:15 - Dr. Park, x-risk, and AGI08:55 - StakeOut.AI12:05 - Governance scorecard19:34 - Hollywood webinar22:02 - Regulations.gov comments23:48 -
MINISODE: "LLMs, a Survey"
Take a trip with me through the paper Large Language Models, A Survey, published on February 9th of 2024. All figures and tables mentioned throughout the episode can be found on the Into AI Safety podcast website.00:36 - Intro and authors01:50 - My takes and paper structure04:40 - Getting to LLMs07:27 - Defining LLMs & emergence12:12 - Overview of PLMs15:00 - How LLMs are built18:52 -
FEEDBACK: Applying for Funding w/ Esben Kran
Esben reviews an application that I would soon submit for Open Philanthropy's Career Transitition Funding opportunity. Although I didn't end up receiving the funding, I do think that this episode can be a valuable resource for both others and myself when applying for funding in the future.Head over to Apart Research's website to check out their work, or the Alignment Jam website for infor
MINISODE: Reading a Research Paper
Before I begin with the paper-distillation based minisodes, I figured we would go over best practices for reading research papers. I go through the anatomy of typical papers, and some generally applicable advice.00:56 - Anatomy of a paper02:38 - Most common advice05:24 - Reading sparsity and path07:30 - Notes and motivationLinks to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the ep
HACKATHON: Evals November 2023 (2)
Join our hackathon group for the second episode in the Evals November 2023 Hackathon subseries. In this episode, we solidify our goals for the hackathon after some preliminary experimentation and ideation.Check out Stellaric's website, or follow them on Twitter.01:53 - Meeting starts05:05 - Pitch: extension of locked models23:23 - Pitch: retroactive holdout datasets34:04 - Preliminary res
MINISODE: Portfolios
I provide my thoughts and recommendations regarding personal professional portfolios.00:35 - Intro to portfolios01:42 - Modern portfolios02:27 - What to include04:38 - Importance of visual05:50 - The "About" page06:25 - Tools08:12 - Future of "Minisodes"Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in order of their appearance.From Portafoglio
INTERVIEW: Polysemanticity w/ Dr. Darryl Wright
Darryl and I discuss his background, how he became interested in machine learning, and a project we are currently working on investigating the penalization of polysemanticity during the training of neural networks.Check out a diagram of the decoder task used for our research!01:46 - Interview begins02:14 - Supernovae classification08:58 - Penalizing polysemanticity20:58 - Our "toy model"3
MINISODE: Starting a Podcast
A summary and reflections on the path I have taken to get this podcast started, including some resources recommendations for others who want to do something similar.Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in order of their appearance.LessWrongSpotify for PodcastersInto AI Safety podcast websiteEffective Altruism GlobalOpen Broadcaster So
HACKATHON: Evals November 2023 (1)
This episode kicks off our first subseries, which will consist of recordings taken during my team's meetings for the AlignmentJams Evals Hackathon in November of 2023. Our team won first place, so you'll be listening to the process which, at the end of the day, turned out to be pretty good.Check out Apart Research, the group that runs the AlignmentJamz Hackathons.Links to all articles/pap
MINISODE: Staying Up-to-Date in AI
In this minisode I give some tips for staying up-to-date in the everchanging landscape of AI. I would like to point out that I am constantly iterating on these strategies, tools, and sources, so it is likely that I will make an update episode in the future.Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in order of their appearance.ToolsFeedlyar
INTERVIEW: Applications w/ Alice Rigg
Alice Rigg, a mechanistic interpretability researcher from Ottawa, Canada, joins me to discuss their path and the applications process for research/mentorship programs.Join the Mech Interp Discord server and attend reading groups at 11:00am on Wednesdays (Mountain Time)!Check out Alice's website.Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in
MINISODE: Program Applications (Winter 2024)
We're back after a month-long hiatus with a podcast refactor and advice on the applications process for research/mentorship programs.Check out the About page on the Into AI Safety website for a summary of the logistics updates.Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned throughout the episode can be found below, in order of their appearance. MATSASTRA FellowshipARENAAI Safety CampBlu
MINISODE: EAG Takeaways (Boston 2023)
This episode is a brief overview of the major takeaways I had from attending EAG Boston 2023, and an update on my plans for the podcast moving forward.TL;DLStarting in early December (2023), I will be uploading episodes on a biweekly basis (day TBD).I won't be releasing another episode until then, so that I can build a cache of episodes up.During this month (November 2023), I'll also try
FEEDBACK: AISC Proposal w/ Remmelt Ellen
In this episode I discuss my initial research proposal for the 2024 Winter AI Safety Camp with one of the individuals who helps facilitate the program, Remmelt Ellen.The proposal is titled The Effect of Machine Learning on Bioengineered Pandemic Risk. A doc-capsule of the proposal at the time of this recording can be found at this link.Links to all articles/papers which are mentioned thro
MINISODE: Introduction and Motivation
Welcome to the Into AI Safety podcast! In this episode I provide reasoning for why I am starting this podcast, what I am trying to accomplish with it, and a little bit of background on how I got here.Please email all inquiries and suggestions to intoaisafety@gmail.com.
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