Scaling Laws

Latest Episodes:

The Ivory Tower and AI (Live from IHS's Technology, Liberalism, and Abundance Conference). Sep 30, 2025

Show notes

Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute, and Gus Hurwitz, Senior Fellow and CTIC Academic Director at Penn Carey Law School and Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore how academics can overcome the silos and incentives that plague the Ivory Tower and positively contribute to the highly complex, evolving, and interdisciplinary work associated with AI governance.

The trio recorded this podcast live at the Institute for Humane Studies’s Technology, Liberalism, and Abundance Conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Read about Kevin's thinking on the topic here: https://www.civitasinstitute.org/research/draining-the-ivory-tower

Learn about the Conference: https://www.theihs.org/blog/curated-event/technology-abundance-and-liberalism/

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AI and Young Minds: Navigating Mental Health Risks with Renee DiResta and Jess Miers Sep 23, 2025

Show notes

Alan Rozenshtein, Renee DiResta, and Jess Miers discuss the distinct risks that generative AI systems pose to children, particularly in relation to mental health. They explore the balance between the benefits and harms of AI, emphasizing the importance of media literacy and parental guidance. Recent developments in AI safety measures and ongoing legal implications are also examined, highlighting the evolving landscape of AI regulation and liability.

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AI Copyright Lawsuits with Pam Samuelson Sep 16, 2025

Show notes

On today's Scaling Laws episode, Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Pam Samuelson, the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, to discuss the rapidly evolving legal landscape at the intersection of generative AI and copyright law. They dove into the recent district court rulings in lawsuits brought by authors against AI companies, including Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta. They explored how different courts are treating the core questions of whether training AI models on copyrighted data is a transformative fair use and whether AI outputs create a “market dilution” effect that harms creators. They also touched on other key cases to watch and the role of the U.S. Copyright Office in shaping the debate.

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AI and the Future of Work: Joshua Gans on Navigating Job Displacement Sep 11, 2025

Show notes

Joshua Gans, a professor at the University of Toronto and co-author of "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence," joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to evaluate ongoing concerns about AI-induced job displacement, the likely consequences of various regulatory proposals on AI innovation, and how AI tools are already changing higher education.

Select works by Gans include:

A Quest for AI Knowledge (https://www.nber.org/papers/w33566)

Regulating the Direction of Innovation (https://www.nber.org/papers/w32741)

How Learning About Harms Impacts the Optimal Rate of Artificial Intelligence Adoption (https://www.nber.org/papers/w32105)

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The State of AI Safety with Steven Adler Sep 09, 2025

Show notes

Steven Adler, former OpenAI safety researcher, author of Clear-Eyed AI on Substack, and independent AGI-readiness researcher, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, to assess the current state of AI testing and evaluations. The two walk through Steven’s views on industry efforts to improve model testing and what he thinks regulators ought to know and do when it comes to preventing AI harms.

You can read Steven’s Substack here: https://stevenadler.substack.com/

Thanks to Leo Wu for research assistance!

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Contrasting and Conflicting Efforts to Regulate Big Tech: EU v. US Sep 02, 2025

Show notes

Anu Bradford, Professor at Columbia Law School, and Kate Klonick, Senior Editor at Lawfare and Associate Professor at St. John's University School of Law, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to assess the ongoing contrasting and, at times, conflicting regulatory approaches to Big Tech being pursued by the EU and US. The trio start with an assessment of the EU’s use of the Brussels Effect, coined by Anu, to shape AI development. Next, then explore the US’s increasingly interventionist industrial policy with respect to key sectors, especially tech.

Read more:

Anu’s op-ed in The New York Times

The Impact of Regulation on Innovation by Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud & John Van Reenen

Draghi Report on the Future of European Competitiveness

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Uncle Sam Buys In: Examining the Intel Deal Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Peter E. Harrell, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to examine the White House’s announcement that it will take a 10% share of Intel. They dive into the policy rationale for the stake as well as its legality. Peter and Kevin also explore whether this is just the start of such deals given that President Trump recently declared that “there will be more transactions, if not in this industry then other industries.”

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AI in the Classroom with MacKenzie Price, Alpha School co-founder, and Rebecca Winthrop, leader of the Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education Aug 26, 2025

Show notes

MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, and Rebecca Winthrop, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, join Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to review how AI is being integrated into the classroom at home and abroad. MacKenzie walks through the use of predictive AI in Alpha School classrooms. Rebecca provides a high-level summary of ongoing efforts around the globe to bring AI into the education pipeline. This conversation is particularly timely in the wake of the AI Action Plan, which built on the Trump administration’s prior calls for greater use of AI from K to 12 and beyond.

Learn more about Alpha School here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/us/politics/ai-alpha-school-austin-texas.html and here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-review-alpha-school

Learn about the Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education here: https://www.brookings.edu/projects/brookings-global-task-force-on-ai-in-education/

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The Open Questions Surrounding Open Source AI with Nathan Lambert and Keegan McBride Aug 21, 2025

Show notes

Keegan McBride, Senior Policy Advisor in Emerging Technology and Geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute, and Nathan Lambert, a post-training lead at the Allen Institute for AI, join Alan Rozenshein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore the current state of open source AI model development and associated policy questions.

The pivot to open source has been swift following initial concerns that the security risks posed by such models outweighed their benefits. What this transition means for the US AI ecosystem and the global AI competition is a topic worthy of analysis by these two experts.

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Export Controls: Janet Egan, Sam Winter-Levy, and Peter Harrell on the White House's Semiconductor Decision Aug 19, 2025

Show notes

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare, sat down with Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Janet Egan, a senior fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security; and Peter Harrell, a nonresident fellow at Carnegie and a former senior director for international economics at the White House National Security Council under President Joe Biden.

They discussed the Trump administration’s recent decision to allow U.S. companies Nvidia and AMD to export a range of advanced AI semiconductors to China in exchange for a 15% payment to the U.S. government. They talked about the history of the export control regime targeting China’s access to AI chips, the strategic risks of allowing China to acquire powerful chips like the Nvidia H20, and the potential harm to the international coalition that has worked to restrict China’s access to this technology. They also debated the statutory and constitutional legality of the deal, which appears to function as an export tax, a practice explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

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