Scaling Laws

Latest Episodes:

HAGS (with AI): How AI Tools Are Shaping Education with Adeel Khan and Ryan Trattner May 26, 2026

Show notes

Adeel Khan of MagicSchool AI and Ryan Trattner of StudyFetch join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into education.

The conversation explores how AI tools are being used by both teachers and students, from automating lesson planning to providing personalized tutoring and study support. The group examines claims about improved learning outcomes and time savings, while probing what counts as meaningful evidence versus early-stage or self-reported metrics.

They also discuss the regulatory and operational challenges of building AI systems in education, including constraints imposed by student data protections, limited access to high-quality training data, and the growing impact of regulations and public scrutiny on product development and deployment.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Politics of Data Centers with VA Delegate John McAuliff May 22, 2026

Show notes

John McAuliff, a Delegate in the Viriginia House of Delegates, joins Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program and a Senior Fellow with the Abundance Institute, to discuss the ongoing debates around data centers at the state level.

John was one of the first candidates to recognize data centers as a key issue. He had to convince his polling team to put the issue on early surveys. Of course, they soon realized he was on to something. In his first legisatlive session as a delegate, John championed legislation to try to help counties negotiate with data center developers. He's not done working on the topic. Learn more about his plans and related issues by giving this episode a listen.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let's Do the Science! Talking Algorithms with Cathy O'Neill May 19, 2026

Show notes

Cathy O’Neil, CEO of ORCAA and author of Weapons of Math Destruction and The Shame Machine, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore the promises and limits of algorithmic auditing.

The conversation examines what audits actually do in practice, how organizations measure and mitigate bias, and why context—not just code—determines whether an AI system causes harm. O’Neil explains why auditing cannot be reduced to a checklist, where it can meaningfully improve outcomes, and where it risks creating a false sense of security.

They also discuss the need for evidence-based AI policy, the challenges of translating ethical concerns into measurable standards, and how regulators should think about auditing as part of broader governance frameworks.

Logan Le-Jeffries, a wonderful member of the AI Innovation and Law Program, provided research assistance on this episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Escaping One-Size-Fits-All AI Policy with Sean Perryman May 15, 2026

Show notes

Sean Perryman, AI policy lead at Uber and lecturer on AI Governance and Ethics at Vanderbilt Law School, joins Kevin Frazier, the Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, to explore the rapidly evolving debate over algorithmic pricing and AI governance.

The conversation begins with the rise of state-level efforts to regulate algorithmic pricing to unpack what these systems are actually doing and why they provoke strong reactions. Perryman examines the political motivations behind these regulatory efforts, the economic tradeoffs they often overlook, and the risk of unintended consequences.

The discussion then broadens to a central theme in Perryman’s work--including his Substack, The Human Cost--not all AI systems raise the same risks. Different use cases require fundamentally different governance approaches—yet policy debates often flatten these distinctions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Forecasting AI's Impact on the Economy with Deger Turan, CEO of Metaculus May 12, 2026

Show notes

Deger Turan, CEO of Metaculus, joins Kevin Frazier to unpack new forecasts on how AI could reshape the labor market over the next decade.

The conversation centers on a striking divergence between Metaculus forecasts and projections from institutions like the Bureau of Labor Statistics—raising fundamental questions about whether existing tools for understanding the economy can keep pace with rapid technological change.

Deger walks through key findings from the Labor Automation Forecasting Hub, including:

A potential decline in overall employment by 2035
Increased pressure on entry-level workers and early-career pipelines
The emergence of “lean” firms generating more value with fewer employees
A counterintuitive “wage paradox,” where fewer jobs may coincide with higher wages
The growing role of political power, regulation, and licensing in shaping labor outcomes

The discussion also explores second-order effects, including how contraction in high-paying sectors could ripple through local economies, and what a shift away from traditional four-year degrees might mean for students and policymakers.

Finally, Deger situates these forecasts within a broader vision: forecasting as a form of epistemic infrastructure. As AI accelerates change, the ability to form accurate beliefs about the future—and update them quickly—may become a core component of effective governance.

*** - This episode was recorded on April 23, 2026. Metaculus is a live platform. It's likely that forecasts mentioned have subsequently changed.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rapid Response: An "FDA for AI" at the White House?, with Dean Ball May 08, 2026

Show notes

Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, spoke with Dean Ball, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, about the Trump administration's reported plans to vet frontier AI models before public release.

They discussed how Anthropic's Mythos model reshaped the administration's posture on AI risk; why the executive branch lacks clear legal authority for a mandatory pre-deployment vetting regime; the voluntary "kick the tires" framework Frazier and Ball have proposed using CAISI and the Cyber Resilience Fund; whether an FDA-style licensing regime is ultimately inevitable for frontier AI; and the institutional design challenges of building AI oversight that can scale with rapidly improving model capabilities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare Daily: Why AI Won’t Revolutionize Law (At Least Not Yet), with Arvind Narayanan and Justin Curl May 05, 2026

Show notes

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare, speaks with Justin Curl, a third-year J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, and Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science at Princeton University and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, about their new Lawfare research report, “AI Won't Automatically Make Legal Services Cheaper,” co-authored with Princeton Ph.D. candidate Sayash Kapoor.

The report argues that despite AI's impressive capabilities, structural features of the legal profession will prevent the technology from delivering dramatic cost savings anytime soon. The conversation covered the "AI as normal technology" framework and why technological diffusion takes longer than capability gains suggest; why legal services are expensive due to their nature as credence goods, adversarial dynamics, and professional regulations; three bottlenecks preventing AI from reducing legal costs, including unauthorized practice of law rules, arms-race dynamics in litigation, and the need for human oversight; proposed reforms such as regulatory sandboxes and regulatory markets; and the normative case for keeping human decision-makers in the judicial system.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An EU-perspective on America’s Approach to AI with Marietje Schaake May 01, 2026

Show notes

In this episode of Scaling Laws, Kate Klonick, Associate Professor of Law at St. John’s University and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, are joined by Marietje Schaake, the International Policy Director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and author of The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. A former Member of the European Parliament, Schaake has long been a leading architect of digital rights and tech governance.

Their conversation explores the central thesis of her work: that a handful of tech giants have effectively staged a "coup" over democratic functions, from national security to the very infrastructure of public discourse. They examine the democratic implications of AI development, the "privatization of policy," and why Schaake believes that without urgent intervention, the "rule of law" is being replaced by the "rule of code."

To get in touch with us, email scalinglaws@lawfaremedia.org. Logan Le-Jeffries, a member of the AI Wranglers student program at the University of Texas School of Law, provided research assistance with this episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eliminating Barriers to AI Adoption with Clarion AI's Bennett Borden Apr 28, 2026

Show notes

Bennett Borden, Founder and CEO of Clarion AI Partners, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at UT and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, to discuss AI adoption as well as the future of the law and legal practice. The two explore Bennett’s unique background, Clarion’s AI interdisciplinary approach, and the importance of AI adoption. They also cover innovative work underway at major AI labs to align model use with user expectations.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Facts & Myths About AI's Energy Usage with Gavin McCormick Apr 24, 2026

Show notes

In this episode of Scaling Laws, we explore how the "black box" of global greenhouse gas emissions is being cracked open by artificial intelligence and satellite imagery.

Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, talks with Gavin McCormick, the founder of ClimateTrace, a global coalition that has revolutionized the process of identifying and quantifying emissions.

For decades, climate policy has relied on self-reported data from nations and corporations—a system prone to gaps and "greenwashing." McCormick’s work leverages machine learning to monitor every major source of emissions on Earth in near real-time. We discuss the legal implications of "radical transparency," how AI-driven data can be used to enforce regulations and measure claims, and the myths and facts of AI’s environmental consequences.

To get in touch with us, email scalinglaws@lawfaremedia.org.

Logan Le-Jeffries, a member of the AI Wranglers student program at the University of Texas School of Law, provided research assistance with this episode.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected