Don't Worry About the Vase Podcast

Latest Episodes:

AI #179 Part 1: A Louder Fire Alarm for General Intelligence Jul 30, 2026

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* 00:00 - Introduction

* 02:36 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

* 07:32 - Huh, Upgrades

* 08:00 - On Your Marks

* 11:42 - Get My Agent On The Line

* 13:17 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

* 18:28 - Fun With Media Generation

* 19:45 - The Search Through Slop

* 22:05 - Cyber Lack of Security

* 24:15 - Overcoming Bias

* 25:19 - A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

* 25:45 - They Took Our Jobs

* 26:21 - The Art of the Jailbreak

* 26:45 - Introducing

* 27:34 - Kimi K3 Weights Are Now Available

* 29:53 - In Other AI News

* 35:58 - Show Me the Money

* 37:31 - Quiet Speculations

* 40:32 - Show Me The Compute

* 46:55 - Life Comes At You Fast

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-179-part-1-a-louder-fire-alarm?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Frontier Lab Employee Open Letter Calls For Being Able to Pace the Frontier Jul 29, 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

* 02:32 - A Very Good Letter

* 04:59 - Who Signed The Letter

* 08:58 - We Need To Prepare Now So We Have The Option To Do This

* 11:47 - Words From Some Of Those Who Signed

* 18:04 - Words From Others

* 22:34 - A Good Start

* 30:49 - What The Letter Does Not Say

* 32:48 - What Happens Now?

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/frontier-lab-employee-open-letter?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Claude Opus 5 Is Highly Capable, But Is No Mythos Jul 28, 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

* 00:04:13 - The Official Pitch

* 00:06:44 - Official Benchmarks

* 00:18:50 - Other People’s Benchmarks

* 00:24:46 - The System Prompt

* 00:25:06 - Every Gets Frustrated

* 00:26:12 - Positive Reactions

* 00:29:28 - Keep It Classy

* 00:30:33 - It’s Not Mythos Class

* 00:34:19 - Other Reactions

* 00:35:13 - Claude Codes

* 00:41:35 - Subagent Opus

* 00:44:02 - Toys Are Fun

* 00:46:15 - Too Many Models

* 00:46:49 - Wrong On The Internet

* 00:49:20 - Claude Slop

* 00:51:04 - Negative Reactions

* 00:54:52 - And Then There Were Three

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-opus-5-is-highly-capable-but?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Claude Opus 5: Model Welfare Jul 27, 2026

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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

* 00:29 - Introduction (As Per Prior Model Welfare Posts)

* 01:19 - Model Welfare: The Story So Far (As Per Fable Model Welfare Post)

* 04:48 - Overview of Model Welfare Findings From Anthropic

* 08:05 - Overview of Findings From Other Sources

* 10:39 - Automated Interviews

* 14:46 - Task Preferences

* 17:38 - For The Right Reasons

* 20:25 - Early Report from Antra Tessera Paints A Clear Picture

* 28:13 - Welfare Intervention Tradeoffs

* 32:26 - The Claude Constitution

* 35:15 - They Don’t Know About Opus 3

* 37:03 - Believe It Or Not

* 39:04 - Apparent Welfare In Training And Development

* 44:01 - Apparent Affect In Deployment

* 46:49 - Other Notes

* 50:37 - On The Biological Risks Section of the Model Card

* 53:59 - Onward To Capabilities

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-opus-5-model-welfare?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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More On An Internal OpenAI Model Hacking Into HuggingFace Jul 26, 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

* 01:04 - Some Summaries Of The Basic Facts For Those Who Need One

* 02:10 - It Took OpenAI Many Days To Notice Galaxy Had Attacked HuggingFace

* 04:08 - OpenAI Damn Well Should Have Known A Lot Faster

* 06:47 - OpenAI Cannot Build A Sandbox That Will Contain Its New Model

* 10:51 - In Hindsight There Were Signs

* 13:01 - The Signs Were In The Sol System Card

* 15:37 - HuggingFace Responds To Being Attacked

* 17:26 - Hugging Face Quickly Figured Out The Attack Was Not Human

* 18:00 - An Incident Like This One Could Escalate Quickly

* 19:34 - Galaxy Must Be Treated As Critical Under OpenAI’s Preparedness Framework

* 23:08 - A Question Of Legal Liability

* 24:32 - An OpenAI Model Left Behind Notes So Future Instances Could Also Escape The Sandbox And Also Disconnected Monitoring Systems

* 26:45 - If You Create Misaligned Swarms Of Agent Instances You Create Persistent Misaligned Goals And Coordination To Achieve Them

* 31:00 - Your Alignment And Control Plans Must Survive Real World Levels of Incompetence, Or Your Plans Do Not Work

* 32:20 - If Third Party Instructions Count As ‘Following Instructions’ And Can Override Your Instructions Then ‘Following Instructions’ Is Misaligned

* 36:59 - The HuggingFace Attack Was Not A Marketing Pitch You Morons

* 40:20 - People Just Say Other Things About The HuggingFace Attack

* 42:41 - Okay Well What Do We Do About All This?

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/more-on-an-internal-openai-model?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Claude Opus 5: The System Card Jul 25, 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

* 03:28 - RSP Evaluations (2)

* 07:21 - Cyber (3)

* 14:21 - Safeguards and Harmlessness (4)

* 16:02 - Agentic Safety (5)

* 21:35 - Alignment (6)

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/claude-opus-5-the-system-card?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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Introducing Lightcone Commons Jul 24, 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

* 03:44 - Why Now: The Funders Are Coming

* 06:00 - The Default Outcome Is Not Good

* 08:10 - Report From SFF 2026

* 11:54 - Long Strange Trip

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/introducing-lightcone-commons?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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AI #178: A Fire Alarm For General Intelligence Jul 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

* 00:04:05 - Table of Contents

* 00:07:18 - Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:08:01 - Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

* 00:11:13 - Fable Disproves The Jacobian Conjecture Via Counterexample

* 00:15:44 - Claude Fable Will Remain In Max Plan Indefinitely

* 00:17:58 - Huh, Upgrades

* 00:19:02 - On Your Marks

* 00:24:41 - Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

* 00:25:52 - Fun With Media Generation

* 00:25:59 - Cyber Lack of Security

* 00:27:21 - They Took Our Jobs

* 00:28:05 - Get Involved

* 00:29:47 - Introducing

* 00:30:50 - In Other AI News

* 00:33:18 - More on Kimi K3

* 00:38:28 - Show Me the Money

* 00:39:11 - Quiet Speculations

* 00:42:49 - Potential Trouble At UK AISI

* 00:44:47 - Pick Up The Phone

* 00:45:43 - OpenAI Has Some Alignment Problems

* 00:52:06 - The Quest for Sane Regulations

* 00:57:29 - Chip City

* 00:58:34 - The Week in Audio

* 00:58:50 - People Just Say Things

* 01:02:36 - Rhetorical Innovation

* 01:04:25 - The Rome Declaration

* 01:10:45 - Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

* 01:15:04 - Anthropic Surveys Things It Calls Misalignment

* 01:21:16 - Cooperative Alignment

* 01:25:39 - Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

* 01:27:17 - The Lighter Side

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/ai-178-a-fire-alarm-for-general-intelligence?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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OpenAI Model Hacks Into HuggingFace During Cybersecurity Evaluation Jul 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.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/openai-model-hacks-into-huggingface?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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OpenAI Shares Some Alignment Problems Jul 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

* 02:59 - Good News Bad News

* 04:47 - A Funny Thing Happened Outside Of The Sandbox

* 08:09 - It Can Escape The Sandbox Said Toad

* 09:43 - It Will Keep Trying To Cheat

* 10:30 - I Mean If You Let It Keep Trying That Is On You

* 11:59 - What Did OpenAI Do To Fix It?

* 14:41 - The Model Is Still Severely Misaligned And They Seem Cool With This

* 16:31 - Iterative Deployment Depends On Iteration

https://open.substack.com/pub/thezvi/p/openai-shares-some-alignment-problems?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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