Don't Worry About the Vase Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Claude Opus 4.6: System Card Part 2: Frontier Alignment Feb 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 - Introduction

* 01:38 - Sabotage, Deception and Evaluation Integrity

* 04:16 - Sandbagging On Dangerous Capability Evaluations

* 06:33 - Situational Awareness

* 08:20 - Inhibiting Evaluation Awareness (6.5)

* 10:07 - Self-Preference

* 11:59 - UK AISI Testing

* 13:10 - Apollo Research Testing

* 16:00 - Responsible Scaling Policy Evaluations

* 17:19 - CBRN (mostly Biology)

* 20:10 - Autonomy

* 28:07 - Autonomy Benchmarks

* 32:43 - Cyber

* 34:17 - Ship It Anyway

* 36:39 - You Are Not Ready

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-opus-46-system-card-part-2?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Claude Opus 4.6: System Card Part 1: Mundane Alignment and Model Welfare Feb 09, 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

* 00:03:50 - A Three Act Play

* 00:04:53 - Safety Not Guaranteed

* 00:10:53 - Pliny Can Still Jailbreak Everything

* 00:13:01 - Transparency Is Good: The 212-Page System Card

* 00:14:07 - Mostly Harmless

* 00:18:47 - Mostly Honest

* 00:21:10 - Agentic Safety

* 00:23:29 - Prompt Injection

* 00:27:38 - Key Alignment Findings

* 00:38:10 - Behavioral Evidence (6.2)

* 00:43:33 - Reward Hacking and ‘Overly Agentic Actions’

* 00:45:53 - Metrics (six point two point five point two)

* 00:48:01 - All I Did It All For The GUI

* 00:49:14 - Case Studies and Targeted Evaluations Of Behaviors (6.3)

* 00:49:36 - Misrepresenting Tool Results

* 00:50:29 - Unexpected Language Switching

* 00:52:34 - The Ghost of Jones Foods

* 00:54:15 - Loss of Style Points

* 00:55:07 - White Box Model Diffing

* 00:55:26 - Model Welfare

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-opus-46-system-card-part-1?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Claude Code #4: From The Before Times Feb 06, 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

* 01:00 - Claude Code and Cowork Offer Mundane Utility

* 04:29 - The Efficient Market Hypothesis Is False

* 08:13 - Inflection Point

* 11:55 - Welcome To The Takeoff

* 12:13 - Huh, Upgrades

* 16:27 - Todos Become Tasks

* 18:02 - I’m Putting Together A Team

* 20:39 - Compact Problems

* 21:22 - Code Yourself A Date

* 24:40 - Verification and Generation Are Distinct Skills

* 26:29 - Skilling Up

* 35:33 - AskUserQuestion

* 36:03 - For Advanced Players

* 38:00 - So They Quit Reading

* 38:26 - Reciprocity Is The Key To Every Relationship

* 42:14 - The Implementation Gap

* 45:42 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-code-4-from-the-before-times?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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AI #154: Claw Your Way To The Top Feb 05, 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

* 00:01:06 - Table of Contents

* 00:04:21 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:06:31 - Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:07:08 - Huh, Upgrades

* 00:09:18 - They Got Served, They Served Back, Now It’s On

* 00:18:13 - On Your Marks

* 00:22:30 - Get My Agent On The Line

* 00:23:42 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

* 00:27:06 - Copyright Confrontation

* 00:27:39 - A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

* 00:28:16 - Unprompted Attention

* 00:28:28 - Get Involved

* 00:32:26 - Introducing

* 00:32:53 - State of AI Report 2026

* 00:40:42 - In Other AI News

* 00:45:13 - Autonomous Killer Robots

* 00:46:43 - Show Me the Money

* 00:49:14 - Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

* 00:52:37 - Quiet Speculations

* 00:53:37 - Seb Krier Says Seb Krier Things

* 01:04:13 - The Quest for Sane Regulations

* 01:04:30 - Chip City

* 01:08:51 - The Week in Audio

* 01:09:15 - The Adolescence of Technology

* 01:10:05 - I Won’t Stand To Be Disparaged

* 01:14:44 - Constitutional Conversation

* 01:16:26 - Rhetorical Innovation

* 01:20:34 - Don’t Panic

* 01:23:05 - Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

* 01:24:23 - People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

* 01:25:37 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-154-claw-your-way-to-the-top?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Kimi K2.5 Feb 04, 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

* 00:10 - Table of Contents

* 00:36 - Official Introduction

* 03:24 - On Your Marks

* 07:04 - Positive Reactions

* 09:12 - Skeptical Reactions

* 11:36 - Kimi Product Accounts

* 12:04 - Agent Swarm

* 13:34 - Who Are You?

* 16:51 - Export Controls Are Working

* 17:17 - Where Are You Going?

* 20:39 - Safety Not Even Third

* 21:47 - It’s A Good Model, Sir

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/kimi-k25?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Unless That Claw Is The Famous OpenClaw Feb 03, 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

* 00:39 - Introducing Clawdbot, scratch that Moltbot, scratch that OpenClaw

* 02:13 - Stop Or You’ll Shoot

* 06:05 - One Simple Rule

* 08:59 - Flirting With Personal Disaster

* 16:05 - Flirting With Other Kinds Of Disaster

* 18:45 - Don’t Outsource Without A Reason

* 20:58 - OpenClaw Online

* 23:48 - The Price Is Not Right

* 25:58 - The Call Is Coming From Inside The House

* 27:27 - The Everything Agent Versus The Particular Agent

* 29:17 - Claw Your Way To The Top

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/unless-that-claw-is-the-famous-openclaw?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Welcome to Moltbook Feb 02, 2026

Show notes

Podcast episode for Welcome to Moltbook

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

* 00:05:05 - Table of Contents

* 00:05:48 - What Is Real? How Do You Define Real?

* 00:06:38 - I Don’t Really Know What You Were Expecting

* 00:13:25 - Social Media Goes Downhill Over Time

* 00:14:50 - I Don’t Know Who Needs To Hear This But

* 00:21:21 - Watch What Happens

* 00:27:47 - Don’t Watch What Happens

* 00:42:13 - Watch What Didn’t Happen

* 00:47:07 - Pulling The Plug

* 00:54:44 - Give Me That New Time Religion

* 00:56:58 - This Time Is Different

* 00:57:36 - People Catch Up With Events

* 01:03:35 - What Could We Do About This?

* 01:07:28 - Just Think Of The Potential

* 01:10:57 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/welcome-to-moltbook?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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

On The Adolescence of Technology Jan 30, 2026

Show notes

Podcast episode for On The Adolescence of Technology

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

* 02:29 - Table of Contents

* 03:22 - Blame The Imperfect

* 10:22 - Anthropic’s Term Is ‘Powerful AI’

* 11:00 - Dario Doubles Down on Dates of Dazzling Datacenter Daemons

* 11:55 - How You Gonna Keep Em Down On The Server Farm

* 16:26 - If He Wanted To, He Would Have

* 16:36 - So Will He Want To?

* 24:02 - The Balance of Power

* 26:14 - Defenses of Autonomy

* 31:14 - Weapon of Mass Destruction

* 33:32 - Defenses Against Biological Attacks

* 36:35 - One Model To Rule Them All

* 39:42 - Defenses Against Autocracy

* 42:36 - They Took Our Jobs

* 45:24 - Don’t Let Them Take Our Jobs

* 47:30 - Economic Concentrations of Power

* 49:17 - Unknown Unknowns

* 51:17 - Oh Well Back To Racing

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/on-the-adolescence-of-technology?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

I have also fully converted Dario Amodei’s essay, The Adolescence of Technology.

https://askwhocastsai.substack.com/p/the-adolescence-of-technology-by?r=67y1h

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AI #153: Living Documents Jan 29, 2026

Show notes

Podcast episode for AI #153: Living Documents.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:00:53 - Table of Contents

* 00:03:41 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:05:13 - Overcoming Bias

* 00:05:45 - Huh, Upgrades

* 00:07:30 - On Your Marks

* 00:07:50 - Choose Your Fighter

* 00:12:09 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

* 00:15:16 - Cybersecurity On Alert

* 00:19:12 - Fun With Media Generation

* 00:20:04 - You Drive Me Crazy

* 00:26:14 - They Took Our Jobs

* 00:26:37 - Get Involved

* 00:27:02 - Introducing

* 00:28:23 - In Other AI News

* 00:32:26 - Show Me the Money

* 00:35:14 - Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

* 00:43:16 - Quiet Speculations

* 00:46:49 - Don’t Be All Thumbs

* 00:47:58 - The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem

* 00:53:33 - Quickly, There’s No Time

* 00:58:16 - The Quest for Sane Regulations

* 01:02:16 - Those Really Were Interesting Times

* 01:06:50 - Chip City

* 01:09:04 - The Week in Audio

* 01:12:01 - Rhetorical Innovation

* 01:19:57 - Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

* 01:20:53 - The Power Of Disempowerment

* 01:25:01 - The Lighter Side

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.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-153-living-documents?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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

Open Problems With Claude's Constitution Jan 28, 2026

Show notes

Podcast episode for Open Problems With Claude’s Constitution.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 01:32 - Amending The Constitution

* 03:58 - Details Matter

* 05:22 - WASTED?

* 08:07 - Narrow Versus Broad

* 09:30 - Suicide Risk As A Special Case

* 11:15 - Careful, Icarus

* 11:56 - Beware Unreliable Sources and Prompt Injections

* 12:59 - Think Step By Step

* 13:38 - This Must Be Some Strange Use Of The Word Safe I Wasn’t Previously Aware Of

* 18:12 - They Took Our Jobs

* 22:14 - One Man Cannot Serve Two Masters

* 26:56 - Claude’s Nature

* 33:24 - Look What You Made Me Do

* 35:56 - Open Problems

* 40:17 - Three Reactions and Twin Objections

* 40:32 - Those Saying This Is Unnecessary

* 41:44 - Those Saying This Is Insufficient

* 43:40 - Those Saying This Is Unsustainable

* 46:50 - We Continue

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.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/open-problems-with-claudes-constitution?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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

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