The AI Policy Podcast

This week, co-hosts Aalok, Nicole, and Chris break down the revelation that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy tied to Megaspeed. They also unpack METR's recent report on accelerated AI R&D at Anthropic, before returning to last week's midterm elections and the future of U.S. AI policy. NOTE: This episode was recorded Wednesday November 11, before reports of Jensen H...

This week, Aalok is joined by Chris Gorin, associate fellow at the Wadhwani AI Center and the newest co-host on the AI Policy Podcast, for a recap of Tuesday’s midterm elections. They discuss how AI influenced voters at the polls and the potential for AI regulation in the new Congress. Aalok then sits down with Sella Nevo to discuss threats to frontier AI labs, securing model weights, and his work...

Aalok and Nicole discuss the latest AI cyber incidents, including major ARTEX-driven hacks and Qwen3.8 attempting to send local system data to a server in China. On the bright side, security experts used AI to find and patch a vulnerability in PHP impacting 70% of the internet. Plus, what's interesting in the Kimi K3.1 Pro model card and why Anthropic is getting backlash for its draft safety bill....

This episode cross-posts the event "From Shahed to Geran: How Russia Continues to Reinvent the One-Way Attack Drone" hosted by the Wadhwani AI Center at CSIS on September 29.  Check out the full event recording: https://www.csis.org/events/shahed-geran-how-russia-continues-reinvent-one-way-attack-drone   Guests: Kateryna Bondar, Senior Fellow, Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strateg...

In this episode, Aalok and Nicole unpack OpenAI's latest math proof drop before diving into the White House's first policy actions in the "SI" era. They cover the (voluntary?) Accord on Super Intelligence signed by all the major industry players and discuss what listeners can expect from Trump's new Super Intelligence Force.    *This episode was recorded at 2:00 pm ET on Tuesday, October...

AI data centers have become a flashpoint for policymakers across the country in the leadup to midterm elections, with polls showing that seven in 10 Americans oppose new data center construction in their local area. In this episode of the AI Policy Podcast, Wadhwani AI Center director Aalok Mehta sits down with writer Jasmine Sun for a conversation about the AI data center backlash. They unpack wh...

This week, Aalok and Nicole discuss new reports of rogue AI agents on the open internet – including the first known case of an agent hacking a government system – and the lackluster outcome of last week's highly anticipated U.S.-China summit. Plus, the Trump Administration and frontier lab CEOs present contrasting visions for AI governance at the UN General Assembly, and states continue to pass ne...

This week, Aalok is joined by Maryam Mujica, president of the General Catalyst Institute, and Munjal Shah, co-founder and CEO of generative AI startup Hippocratic AI, for a discussion on how generative AI startups are thinking about AI regulation. Guests:  Maryam Mujica, President, General Catalyst Institute Munjal Shah, co-founder and CEO, Hippocratic AI Timestamps: About the General Catalys...

An Anthropic researcher's viral resignation post last week set off a maelstrom of fear around extreme AI risks. Aalok and Nicole discuss the resulting vibe shift and how frontier labs are responding. They also unpack OpenAI solving one of the most difficult open problems in mathematics and reports of more rogue agent activity on the open internet.   Timestamps: OpenAI solves Millenium Pr...

This week, Aalok is joined by Jason Elliott, the former Deputy Chief of Staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom, for a conversation about regulating AI at the state level.   Guests: Jason Elliott, President, Versus Solutions   Timestamps: Jason's bio (0:16) Legislating at the state vs. federal level (2:21) Revisiting SB-1047 (5:58) SB-53 (13:43) States as "laboratories of democracy" (1...

This week, we unpack findings from METR's six-day investigation of the OpenAI-Hugging Face cyber incident. We also discuss an IVO bill passed by the California Legislature, Bill Gates' take on the current moment in AI, and a federal judge striking down Anthropic's supply chain risk designation. Additional Reading: SB-813 bill text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...

This episode cross-posts a panel from the event "AI Agent Containment Failures: Technical Realities and Policy Responses," co-hosted by the Wadhwani AI Center and the Institute for Law and AI on August 24.  Check out the full event recording: https://www.csis.org/events/ai-agent-containment-failures-technical-realities-and-policy-responses   Guests: Helen Toner, Executive Director, Cente...

This week, we cover updates from the ongoing cyber saga, including OpenAI's two-week pause on RL training and the cyber capabilities of Z.ai's latest model GLM-5.3. We also unpack Anthropic's move to add watermarks to text generated by Claude in compliance with the EU AI Act. Timestamps: Mark Zuckerberg's essay on AI (00:20) OpenAI pauses RL training (5:56) Cyber capabilities of GLM-5.3 (15:29) EU...

In this episode, we're joined by Adrian Brown, founder and CEO of Windfall Trust, for a conversation about the economic impacts of AI.   Why the economic focus (00:58) Capturing AI's impact in macro statistics (5:03) Planning under uncertainty (9:44) What's driving the AI backlash (17:27) A new social contract for the AI era (20:31) Are governments taking AI seriously enough? (31:21) Why AI i...

In this episode, we touch on Texas' new verification and audit requirement for data center developers seeking connection to the state's grid (1:11) before unpacking Anthropic's disclosure of three incidents in which its models hacked into another company during internal cyber evaluations (11:02). We discuss how these incidents—in addition to a previously disclosed incident at OpenAI—are drivi...

In this episode, we're joined by Fathom co-founder and President Bri Treece for a conversation about third-party solutions to AI governance. Bri makes the case for Independent Verification Organizations, or IVOs, as the ideal AI governance model (5:32) and explains what historical analogies have to teach us about regulating AI (10:39). We also discuss the role IVOs can play in assuaging the public...

In this episode, we're joined by Hiroki Habuka for a conversation about Japan's approach to AI sovereignty. We discuss how the Japanese government defines sovereign AI (1:08) and how that definition shifted following the Trump Administration's move to block foreign access to Anthropic's Fable in June (7:58). We also cover Japan's AI Promotion Act (13:52) and the country's take on copyright and AI...

In this episode, we discuss reports that OpenAI models escaped a sandboxed evaluation and breached Hugging Face's infrastructure (00:33). We then turn to Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, which has prompted talk of a second "DeepSeek moment," along with the distillation and export-control questions surrounding it (8:31). Finally, we cover New York Governor Kathy Hochul's executive order pausing data center p...

In this episode, we're joined by Sean Mullin for a conversation on Canadian AI sovereignty. We discuss implications of the Trump Administration restricting foreign nationals' access to Fable (1:33); highlights from Canada's June 2026 National AI Strategy (13:05); the country's approach to AI regulation, including its AI and Data Act and (27:38); and more. Sean is a senior fellow at the Munk School...

In this episode, we discuss the AI Safety Measures Act, or SB 315, Illinois' new frontier AI bill that mandates third-party audits for frontier AI labs (:51). We also cover the Trump administration's decision to lift export controls on Anthropic's Fable and Mythos models (7:34), Anthropic's claim that Alibaba extracted capabilities from Claude in a large-scale distillation attack (17:46), and Open...

In this episode, we're joined by Austin Carson and Joshua New of SeedAI, a nonprofit focused on building AI readiness in the United States. We discuss their backgrounds (00:56), SeedAI's mission and projects (10:28), opportunities and risks from using AI to advance scientific discovery (14:15), and more.

In this episode, we're joined by Kate Koren, deputy director of the Economics Program and Scholl Chair at CSIS, to discuss the Trump administration's recent move to impose export controls on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. We walk through the events leading up to the administration's decision (:47) and explore what authorities the Commerce Department has to restrict access to AI models (6...

In this episode, we unpack the Mythos-inspired executive order "Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security," which the Trump administration issued on June 2 after an initial delay (2:10). We also cover the draft federal AI framework released by Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan (14:53) and recent proposals for the U.S. government to acquire shares of American AI companies...

In this episode of the AI Policy Podcast, Wadhwani AI Center Director Aalok Mehta is joined by Arun Gupta, CEO of NobleReach Foundation and experienced venture capitalist, for a discussion on bridging the technology talent gap between the private and public sectors. They will cover the mission and accomplishments of NobleReach, the newly launched US Tech Force and its implications for AI adoption...

In this episode, Aalok Mehta makes his first appearance as the new host of the AI Policy Podcast. We briefly discuss what listeners can expect in this new chapter of the podcast before diving into Pope Leo XIV's recent encyclical on AI (1:45). We also cover President Trump's postponed executive order on AI and cybersecurity, including what the EO likely contained and why its signing ceremony was u...