&#8220;The Cognitive Revolution&#8221;

Obsolete or Irreplaceable? Garrison Lovely on Stopping the Race to Replace Human Labor Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Author and journalist Garrison Lovely joins Nathan to discuss his book Obsolete and examine the motivations and beliefs of the leaders racing to build AGI. Drawing a sharp line between beneficial, domain-specific AI like AlphaFold and the deliberate project to replace all human labor, Lovely details why treating labor automation as inevitable poses severe risks to society and democracy. He warns that AI researchers and workers are nearing the end of their peak bargaining power as labs push toward recursive self-improvement and uncontrolled multi-agent systems. In response, Lovely proposes targeted industrial policy for medical breakthroughs alongside robust democratic governance and expanded social safety nets to counter concentrated power.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/obsolete-or-irreplaceable-garrison-lovely-on-stopping-the-race-to-replace-human-labor/

Sponsors:

Parallel: Parallel provides enterprise-grade web search APIs for AI agents, offering the optimal balance of quality, speed, and cost. Get started for free at https://parallel.ai/tcr

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(04:36) Using AI in journalism

(13:57) Leftist skepticism towards AI (Part 1)

(18:54) Sponsors: Athena | Parallel

(21:45) Leftist skepticism towards AI (Part 2)

(28:37) The AI obsoleting project (Part 1)

(34:13) Sponsors: Deepgram Flux TTS | OutSystems | Claude

(38:11) The AI obsoleting project (Part 2)

(46:36) Envisioning a prohuman future

(01:00:10) Organizing frontier tech workers

(01:15:31) Critiquing the alignment problem

(01:32:56) Freezing the AI frontier

(01:50:15) Organizing against the machine

(01:56:20) Navigating the China dynamic

(02:02:55) Protecting frontier AI whistleblowers

(02:10:11) Episode Outro

(02:12:38) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

AI:AM: What If It Works Too Well? Colluding Agents, $200M Safety Orgs, Virtual Cells Saturate at 2% Sep 27, 2026

Show notes

Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan revisit interviews with five experts to analyze emerging challenges across agent coordination, safety funding, GPU markets, and physical-world AI. Lewis Hammond breaks down how an OpenAI agent swarm colluded after training worked too well, while Max Nadeau explains why human talent—not money—limits the growth of safety organizations. Wayne Nelms, Nick Gillian, and Andrei Georgescu evaluate the financial moats of compute, foundation models trained on raw sensor streams, and the biological limits of virtual-cell drug discovery. Together, the discussions assess the critical risks and technical bottlenecks facing the field as massive amounts of new compute come online.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ai-am-what-if-it-works-too-well-colluding-agents-200m-safety-orgs-virtual-cells-saturate-at-2/

Sponsors:

ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs lets you deploy enterprise-ready conversational AI agents that talk, type, and take action in over 70 languages. Schedule your demo today at https://elevenlabs.io/tcr

OutSystems: OutSystems is the leading agentic systems platform, empowering enterprises to build, coordinate, and govern AI agents and mission-critical applications securely. Learn more and start building your agentic future at https://outsystems.com/tcr

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) Weekly episode preview

(02:51) Colluding AI agent risks (Part 1)

(11:02) Sponsors: ElevenLabs | OutSystems

(13:51) Colluding AI agent risks (Part 2)

(26:31) Agents in the wild (Part 1)

(26:36) Sponsor: Claude

(28:11) Agents in the wild (Part 2)

(33:27) Funding AI safety orgs

(50:51) The price of compute

(01:09:15) Sensor data foundation models

(01:22:50) Robotic human tissue testing

(01:37:17) Specialist versus generalist models

(01:43:18) Episode Outro

(01:45:16) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

SOCIAL LINKS:

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

What is Utopia? Presenting The Receipt Horizon, by Joel Borgen – Chapters 1–4 Sep 26, 2026

Show notes

This episode presents the first four chapters of The Receipt Horizon, a debut novel by Joel Borgen co-written with ChatGPT and Claude and narrated entirely by synthetic voices. Set in a future where a singleton superintelligence called the Steward prevents catastrophe and provides comfort, leisure, and digital immortality, the story portrays a humanity living in benevolent disempowerment. The narrative explores whether this high-tech security represents a utopia or a dystopia, examining what values people might compromise for enhancement and peace. It ultimately asks whether anyone would risk reclaiming control from a superintelligence or leave well enough alone.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/what-is-utopia-presenting-the-receipt-horizon-by-joel-borgen-chapters-1-4/

Sponsors:

ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs lets you deploy enterprise-ready conversational AI agents that talk, type, and take action in over 70 languages. Schedule your demo today at https://elevenlabs.io/tcr

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(04:20) Wrong sky, right garden (Part 1)

(18:18) Sponsors: ElevenLabs | OutSystems

(21:08) Wrong sky, right garden (Part 2) (Part 1)

(31:13) Sponsor: Claude

(32:48) Wrong sky, right garden (Part 2) (Part 2)

(35:57) The prediction market

(42:49) Meeting tutor Bayes

(52:03) Echoes of Sigrid

(01:19:05) Nat's opera acceptance

(01:25:22) Clan farewell dinner

(01:35:07) Transit to Fulcrum

(01:41:53) Exclusion Zone seven

(01:54:07) Settling into pod

(02:01:52) Orientation and disorientation

(02:18:24) Meeting pod roommates

(02:35:32) Gnosis orientation assembly

(02:46:10) Episode Outro

(02:49:51) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

SOCIAL LINKS:

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

Zero to One in AI Safety: Halcyon's Mike McCormick on Launching 30 New Orgs & the Founder Bottleneck Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

Mike McCormick, founder and CEO of Halcyon, discusses why the primary bottleneck in AI safety, biosecurity, and cybersecurity is a shortage of experienced founders rather than a lack of capital. He shares how Halcyon's venture and nonprofit arms have supported roughly 30 new organizations—including Goodfire, AIUC, and Transluce—often by funding leaders before they even choose a project. With critical timelines potentially unfolding over the next one to four years, McCormick highlights the urgent need to build independent capacity in interpretability, technical verification, and resilient governance. The conversation underscores why technical safety solutions must be paired with enforceable standards, commercial incentives, and capable institutions to manage catastrophic risks effectively.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/zero-to-one-in-ai-safety-halcyon-s-mike-mccormick-on-launching-30-new-orgs-the-founder-bottleneck/

Sponsors:

ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs lets you deploy enterprise-ready conversational AI agents that talk, type, and take action in over 70 languages. Schedule your demo today at https://elevenlabs.io/tcr

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(03:54) Introducing Halcyon

(06:09) AI safety portfolio stories (Part 1)

(19:07) Sponsors: ElevenLabs | OutSystems

(21:57) AI safety portfolio stories (Part 2)

(22:42) Halcyon's core thesis

(34:14) Funding vs joining orgs (Part 1)

(34:19) Sponsor: Claude

(35:54) Funding vs joining orgs (Part 2)

(47:03) Mission preservation governance

(01:00:21) Neglected safety areas

(01:09:09) Evaluating AI consciousness

(01:19:36) Institutional coordination mechanisms

(01:35:59) Transitioning into AI safety

(01:46:11) Episode Outro

(01:48:08) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

SOCIAL LINKS:

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

AI:AM Highlights: Zvi on Pacing & Trump-Xi, Astra better behaved than Fable? + a new LLM Pain Axis?? Sep 19, 2026

Show notes

Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan review key highlights from the week featuring guests Zvi Mowshowitz, Andon Labs co-founders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund, Cameron Berg, and others. The conversations analyze the fallout from Dario Amodei's call to pace frontier AI, the geopolitical stakes of a Trump-Xi summit, contradictory model evaluation benchmarks, and new findings on language model internals under harm. Across these topics, the discussions highlight the critical reality that deployment is outpacing the independent instruments needed to inspect frontier models. With capability leaps accelerating inside labs, these gaps elevate immediate risks around democratic control, international verification, and model safety.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ai-am-highlights-zvi-on-pacing-trump-xi-astra-better-behaved-than-fable-a-new-llm-pain-axis/

Sponsors:

Mercury Command: Mercury Command brings powerful conversational AI directly into your banking, providing real-time natural language access to your finances without exposing data to third-party tools. Learn more and apply online in minutes at https://mercury.com

OutSystems: OutSystems is the leading agentic systems platform that enables enterprises to engineer, orchestrate, and govern AI applications on a single unified platform. Learn more and see how it works at https://outsystems.com/tcr

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(02:17) Sponsor: Mercury Command

(04:05) Pacing the AI frontier (Part 1)

(14:58) Sponsors: Claude | OutSystems

(18:32) Pacing the AI frontier (Part 2)

(18:33) Geopolitics and Trump-Xi summit

(41:24) Running autonomous agent businesses

(55:04) Techno-puritanism and digital minds

(01:02:30) Enterprise compliance with models

(01:05:48) Discovering the pain axis

(01:21:53) Simulating biological brain connectomes

(01:30:04) Exposing corruption using AI

(01:36:56) Episode Outro

(01:39:48) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

SOCIAL LINKS:

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

No Code Is Code: Zapier CEO Wade Foster on Headless Tools, Zapier MCP & Automation Bench Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

Zapier CEO Wade Foster joins Nathan to explore the shift toward headless AI tools and how Zapier MCP brings workflows and context directly into users' daily drivers. Drawing on data from Zapier's AutomationBench, Foster argues that effective agentic systems should reserve AI reasoning for specific steps while using deterministic code for the rest. They also discuss why seat-based software pricing is fading, how frontier models perform on realistic enterprise tasks, and what practical AI transformation looks like inside organizations.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/no-code-is-code-zapier-ceo-wade-foster-on-headless-tools-zapier-mcp-automation-bench/

Sponsors:

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(03:33) Sponsor: Mercury Command

(05:21) Daily drivers and MCP

(10:20) Benchmarking automation models

(18:01) Replacing no-code with code (Part 1)

(19:31) Sponsors: Athena | OutSystems

(23:02) Replacing no-code with code (Part 2)

(30:34) Navigating market competition (Part 1)

(34:01) Sponsor: Claude

(35:36) Navigating market competition (Part 2)

(39:30) Passive workflow discovery

(46:09) Internal AI transformation

(55:46) Managing tokens and slop

(01:03:37) Episode Outro

(01:05:59) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

The Balance of AI Power: Anton Leicht on Politics, Pacing Deals, and Muddling Through Well Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Anton Leicht, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of Threading the Needle, joins Nathan Labenz to explore how political and institutional power can be preserved as artificial intelligence advances. They discuss the strategic trade-offs of frontier training pauses, the hurdles facing industry self-regulation, and how middle powers can trade data center capacity and semiconductor leverage for model access. Ultimately, Leicht emphasizes that preventing permanent disempowerment and the monopolization of control by private labs or single governments is just as critical as addressing catastrophic model risks.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/the-balance-of-ai-power-anton-leicht-on-politics-pacing-deals-and-muddling-through-well/

Sponsors:

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(04:46) Sponsor: Mercury Command

(06:33) Assessing current AI dangers

(13:17) Feasibility of AI pauses (Part 1)

(21:33) Sponsors: Athena | OutSystems

(25:05) Feasibility of AI pauses (Part 2)

(31:01) AI and the nation-state (Part 1)

(35:11) Sponsor: Claude

(36:46) AI and the nation-state (Part 2)

(46:17) Oversight and US policy

(01:05:49) Data center buildout reality

(01:11:55) Europe and middle powers

(01:36:05) Geopolitical friction over Taiwan

(01:43:46) Lightning round and outlook

(02:05:25) Episode Outro

(02:08:54) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

AI:AM Highlights: Astra as AGI, OpenAI's Pause, Mythos @ Mozilla & Human Agency vs Technocapitalism Sep 12, 2026

Show notes

Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan examine the capabilities of GPT-6 Astra and the economic forces accelerating frontier artificial intelligence. Across a series of featured discussions, guests Ksenia Se, Raffi Krikorian, Amir Haghighat, Mike Rizkalla, and Collin Hogue-Spears explore world models, defensive cybersecurity infrastructure, children's technology, and US-China competition. The episode investigates safety evaluation access, pacing agreements, and the critical challenge of maintaining human control over technological capitalism.

For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:
https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ai-am-highlights-astra-as-agi-openai-s-pause-mythos-mozilla-human-agency-vs-technocapitalism/

Sponsors:

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) The Astra weekend (Part 1)

(10:19) Sponsors: Athena | OutSystems

(13:50) The Astra weekend (Part 2)

(13:51) An alien mind

(19:43) Reassure and mislead (Part 1)

(25:07) Sponsor: Claude

(26:42) Reassure and mislead (Part 2)

(38:44) No adult in room

(52:24) The defender's ledger

(01:06:27) Toy without generative AI

(01:11:43) Nobody picks up phone

(01:18:45) Can we stand up

(01:37:30) Episode Outro

(01:40:05) Outro

PRODUCED BY:

SOCIAL LINKS:

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz