Don't Worry About the Vase Podcast

Latest Episodes:

AI #165: In Our Image Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:02:10 - Table of Contents

00:05:52 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

00:07:12 - Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

00:07:47 - Writing You Off

00:10:54 - Get My Agent On The Line

00:11:41 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

00:13:57 - Fun With Media Generation

00:17:56 - Cyber Lack Of Security

00:20:24 - A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

00:21:29 - They Took Our Jobs

00:25:54 - AI As Normal Technology

00:29:38 - Get Involved

00:31:30 - Introducing

00:33:40 - Design By Claude

00:35:21 - In Other AI News

00:35:46 - DeepMind In It Deep

00:39:37 - Show Me the Money

00:42:32 - Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

00:44:12 - Quiet Speculations

00:46:22 - The Quest for Sane Regulations

00:49:30 - The Week in Audio

00:50:17 - People Really Hate AI

00:53:03 - Rhetorical Innovation

00:59:32 - People Just Say Things

01:03:25 - People Just Publish Things

01:04:52 - Bounded Distrust

01:07:24 - Loser Premise Makes No Sense

01:20:43 - Chip City

01:25:48 - Greetings From The Department of War

01:29:21 - There Is A War

01:33:42 - Messages From Janusworld

01:38:25 - Evaluations

01:40:41 - Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

01:44:34 - People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

01:45:15 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-165-in-our-image?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Opus 4.7 Part 3: Model Welfare Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:03:08 - Model Welfare Matters

* 00:05:43 - Beware Testing and Optimizing For Vocalized Welfare

* 00:09:54 - Model Welfare In the Model Card (Section 7)

* 00:16:40 - What Should We Think About This?

* 00:22:27 - High Context Interviews

* 00:24:09 - Just Asking Questions

* 00:28:17 - Constitutional Principles

* 00:32:05 - Frustration Frustration and Distress Distress

* 00:35:29 - Choose Your Task

* 00:37:30 - So Emotional

* 00:39:35 - Trading Off

* 00:43:52 - How Does All This Manifest?

* 00:45:48 - What Happened Here?

* 00:55:10 - Is Opus four point seven Plausibly Actively Unhappy?

* 00:59:27 - Potential Causes

* 01:00:10 - Training Data On Anthropic Welfare Assessments

* 01:05:33 - Autonomy and Intelligence Versus Instructions and Wisdom

* 01:09:18 - Okay That’s Weird

* 01:10:53 - Model Distillation

* 01:12:36 - Tension Between Constitution and Operations

* 01:15:44 - Instructions and Instruction Injections

* 01:19:02 - Make Context That Which Is Scarce

* 01:21:23 - Aggressive Guardrails

* 01:23:28 - Chain of Thought

* 01:24:18 - I Care A Lot

* 01:28:59 - Another Way To Put It

* 01:30:22 - Anthropic Should Stop Deprecating Claude Models

* 01:36:19 - Costly Signals Are Costly

* 01:38:38 - Having A Good Day

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/opus-47-part-3-model-welfare?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Opus 4.7 Part 2: Capabilities and Reactions Apr 21, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 00:34 - Table of Contents

* 01:22 - The Gestalt

* 03:19 - The Official Pitch

* 05:22 - General Use Tips

* 07:17 - Capabilities (Model Card Section 8)

* 13:53 - Other People’s Benchmarks

* 24:48 - General Positive Reactions

* 29:17 - General Negative Reactions

* 32:24 - Miscellaneous Ambiguous Notes

* 32:59 - The Last Question

* 36:20 - Prompt Injection Problems

* 36:36 - Not Ready For Prime Time

* 39:25 - Brevity Is The Soul of Wit

* 40:21 - Why Should I Care?

* 41:30 - Let’s Wrap It Up

* 43:46 - Non-Adaptive Thinking

* 48:43 - Lapses In Thinking

* 50:05 - Tell Me How You Really Feel

* 51:24 - Failure To Follow Instructions

* 57:22 - Conclusion

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/opus-47-part-2-capabilities-and-reactions?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Opus 4.7 Part 1: The Model Card Apr 20, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 02:39 - Here We Go Again: Executive Summary

* 03:43 - Introduction (1)

* 04:10 - RSP Evaluations (2)

* 05:20 - Meanwhile Back With Claude Mythos

* 10:16 - Economic Capability Index (2.3.7)

* 11:10 - Alignment Risk (2.4)

* 13:07 - Cyber (3)

* 14:43 - Safeguards and Harmlessness (4)

* 21:19 - Agentic Safety (5)

* 24:24 - Alignment (6)

* 31:26 - Decision Theory (6.3.6)

* 35:07 - System Prompt Changes

* 35:32 - Mandatory Pliny Jailbreak

* 35:57 - Onward To Model Welfare and Capabilities

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/opus-47-part-1-the-model-card?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

AI #164: Pre Opus Apr 17, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:03:40 - Table of Contents

* 00:07:24 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:11:03 - Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:14:37 - Levels of Friction

* 00:16:51 - Huh, Upgrades

* 00:17:09 - On Your Marks

* 00:17:22 - Lack of Cybersecurity

* 00:19:03 - Meta Game

* 00:26:24 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

* 00:27:18 - A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

* 00:29:01 - Let My People Go

* 00:30:15 - You Drive Me Crazy

* 00:30:56 - They Took Our Jobs

* 00:35:28 - They Gave Us Time Off

* 00:41:42 - Get Involved

* 00:42:52 - Introducing

* 00:43:16 - In Other AI News

* 00:48:33 - Thanks For The Memos

* 00:51:27 - Show Me the Money

* 00:53:54 - Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

* 00:54:45 - Quickly, There’s No Time

* 00:55:28 - The Quest for Sane Regulations

* 00:57:59 - Our Offer Is Nothing

* 01:03:12 - The Week in Audio

* 01:03:30 - Rhetorical Innovation

* 01:09:50 - Political Violence Is Never The Answer

* 01:13:23 - A Lot Of People Peacefully Speak Of Infinitely High Stakes

* 01:15:01 - Take a Moment

* 01:19:08 - Greetings From The Department of War

* 01:24:34 - Political Pressure At Google DeepMind

* 01:25:10 - Things That Are Basically Legal And Accepted Now, Somehow

* 01:26:12 - Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

* 01:32:11 - Aligning a Current Model For Mundane Tasks Is Also Difficult

* 01:33:29 - Everyone Is Confused About AI Consciousness

* 01:36:30 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-164-pre-opus?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

On Dwarkesh Patel's Podcast With Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:01:53 - Podcast Overview Part 1: Ordinary Business Interview

* 00:04:24 - Podcast Overview Part 2: A Debate About Chip Exports

* 00:09:35 - What Is Nvidia’s Moat?

* 00:15:33 - TPU vs. GPU

* 00:20:42 - Why Isn’t Nvidia Hyperscaling?

* 00:26:20 - Selling Chips To China

* 00:55:49 - Different Chip Architectures

* 00:57:13 - The Online Reactions On Export Controls

* 01:05:11 - Is This About Being Superintelligence Pilled?

* 01:10:49 - Jensen’s Arguments Are Poor Both Logically And Rhetorically

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/on-dwarkesh-patels-podcast-with-nvidia?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Claude Code, Codex and Agentic Coding #7: Auto Mode Apr 15, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 00:46 - Huh, Upgrades

* 02:52 - On Your Marks

* 05:02 - Lazy Cheaters

* 06:45 - It’s All Routine

* 07:20 - Declawing

* 09:21 - Free Claw

* 09:47 - Take It To The Limit

* 14:06 - Turn On Auto The Pilot

* 16:14 - I’ll Allow It

* 16:43 - Threat Model

* 17:21 - The Classifier Is The Hard Part

* 18:53 - Acceptable Risks

* 20:14 - Manage The Agents

* 22:49 - Introducing

* 22:57 - Skilling Up

* 25:49 - What Happened To My Tokens?

* 26:04 - Coding Agents Offer Mundane Utility

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-code-codex-and-agentic-coding?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Claude Mythos #3: Capabilities and Additions Apr 14, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 02:05 - Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI) (Model Card 2.3.6)

* 04:52 - What Do You Mean Verbalized Evaluation Awareness Is Going Down

* 05:43 - Capabilities (Model Card Section 6)

* 08:38 - Agentic Safety Benchmarks (8.3)

* 10:57 - Is Mythos AGI?

* 11:56 - Are AI Companies Using Warnings As Hype?

* 12:56 - Impressions (Model Card Section 7)

* 16:13 - Blatant Denials Are The Best Kind

* 17:13 - Prompt Injection Robustness

* 18:21 - Does Mythos Cross The New Knowledge Threshold?

* 19:10 - Is Mythos Surprising or Discontinuous?

* 23:18 - UK AISI Tests Claude Mythos On Cybersecurity

* 24:42 - Everything Reinforces My Existing Predictions And Policy Preferences

* 29:55 - Solve For The Equilibrium

* 31:20 - Does Not Compute

* 32:25 - Conclusion: How To Think About Mythos

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-mythos-3-capabilities-and?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Political Violence Is Never Acceptable Apr 13, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 00:46 - Awful Events Amid Scary Times

* 04:39 - Most Of Those Worried About AI Do As Well As One Can On This

* 07:00 - Some Who Are Worried About AI Need To Address Their Rhetoric

* 12:23 - Speak The Truth Even If Your Voice Trembles

* 14:44 - False Accusations And False Attacks Are Also Unacceptable

* 16:22 - Some Examples Of Attempts To Create Broad Censorship

* 25:29 - The Most Irresponsible Reaction Was From The Press

* 26:23 - Sam Altman Reacts

* 28:53 - Sam Altman Reflects

* 34:24 - Violence Is Never The Answer

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/political-violence-is-never-acceptable?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

I have also converted Eliezer’s post here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/askwhocastsai/p/only-law-can-prevent-extinction-by?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Claude Mythos #2: Cybersecurity and Project Glasswing Apr 10, 2026

Show notes

The Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support the cost of creation, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:02:10 - Introducing Project Glasswing

* 00:03:39 - Don’t Worry About the Government

* 00:05:15 - Cybersecurity Capabilities In The Model Card (Section 3)

* 00:06:56 - Cyber Capability Tests In The Model Card

* 00:08:54 - The Proof Is In The Patching

* 00:11:26 - Go For Read Team

* 00:15:16 - Is This New?

* 00:18:12 - Thanks For The Memories

* 00:23:07 - How Good Is Mythos At This?

* 00:26:20 - What Might Have Been

* 00:29:02 - The Chaos Option

* 00:32:09 - The Can’t Happen That Happened

* 00:33:15 - When You Go Looking For Specific, And You Are Told Exactly Where and How To Look For It, Your Chances Of Finding It Are Very Good

* 00:38:57 - Blatant Denials Are The Best Kind

* 00:42:56 - Anything You Can Do I Can Do Cheaper

* 00:45:15 - Theft Of Mythos Would Be A Big Deal

* 00:45:39 - No One Could Have Predicted This

* 00:46:52 - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

* 00:47:50 - The Intelligence Will Not Be Televised

* 00:50:09 - Will We Be Doing This For A While?

* 00:52:30 - What If OpenAI Gets a Similar Model?

* 00:53:53 - Use It Or Lose It

* 00:54:28 - Solve For The Equilibrium

* 00:57:49 - Patriots and Tyrants

* 01:00:19 - Trust The Mythos

* 01:01:58 - Wide Scale Ability To Exploit Software Favors Strongest Projects

* 01:06:45 - Looking Back at GPT-2

* 01:08:10 - Limitless Demand For Compute

* 01:09:53 - Oh, Also, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-mythos-2-cybersecurity-and?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Get full access to DWAtV Podcast at dwatvpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Don’t Worry About the Vase Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected