Into AI Safety

Jacob Haimes

5.0 (5)
Technology

The Into AI Safety podcast aims to make it easier for everyone, regardless of background, to get meaningfully involved with the conversations surrounding the rules and regulations which should govern the research, development, deployment, and use of the technologies encompassed by the term "artificial intelligence" or "AI" For better formatted show notes, additional resources, and more, go to https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/

4d ago

Holding the Human Line w/ Allan Brooks and Etienne Brisson

Etienne Brisson and Allan Brooks, founder and program director of The Human Line Project, sat down with me to talk about AI-induced psychological harm, starting with their own experiences. Allan spent a month spiraling with ChatGPT, ending with him warning national security agencies about an encryption break that never happened. Etienne's uncle became convinced his chatbot was sentient and was hospitalized still messaging it from the back of a police car. From there we get into why the community rejects "AI psychosis," what's driving these spirals, and whether anthropomorphic language is doing more damage than we admit. We also get into Allan's litigation against OpenAI, why Etienne thinks consequences are the only substitute for missing incentives, and whether these concerns are just a new moral panic. If you're interested in listening in greater detail, check out the extended version on the Kairos.fm Patreon. The Human Line Project runs a free peer support community. If you're struggling, findahelpline.com will route you to support wherever you are. NOTE: Jacob volunteers some of his time with The Human Line Project. Chapters (00:00) - Intro (04:26) - Allan's Story (30:20) - Etienne's Story (40:32) - We Don't Like "AI Psychosis" (47:58) - Why Is This Happening? (59:58) - Anthropomorphization of AI (01:13:21) - Narratives & Accountability? (01:32:47) - Liability and Regulatory Capture (01:35:56) - Outro LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.The Human Line Project websiteThe Human Line communityThe Logic article - Meet the Quebecer Leading the Human Resistance Against AINY Times article - Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here's How It Happens.Clear-Eyed AI blogpost - Practical Tips for Reducing Chatbot PsychosisGeorgetown Institute for Technology Law & Policy brief - AI Sycophancy & OpenAIFAccT '26 paper - Characterizing Delusional Spirals through Human-LLM Chat LogsNature op-ed - Friendlier LLMs Tell Users What They Want to Hear — Even When It Is WrongMMLC Group blogpost - China Releases Rules for AI "Human-Like" Emotional Interaction ServicesInto AI Safety podcast episode w/ Jacy Reese-Anthis (includes a section on ELIZA)
Aug 17

Mapping Civilization's Resilience Gaps w/ Dr. Evan Miyazono

Dr. Evan Miyazono joins Jacob to talk about his path from quantum networking and Protocol Labs to founding Atlas Computing. They discuss why Atlas moved away from formal methods research and toward what Evan calls “field strategy”: identifying important problems, figuring out what interventions could actually address them, and finding the people best positioned to make them happen. The conversation also covers the resilience gap map, coordination failures, AI safety, "value alignment," and the question of how to decide what work is worth doing when there’s no obvious organization responsible for it. Check out the video version of this podcast on the Kairos.fm YouTube channel, or the extended version on Patreon! Chapters (00:00) - Intro (05:04) - From Quantum Internet to Blockchain (13:31) - Founding Atlas Computing (18:26) - Formal Methods Explained (ASIDE) (24:40) - Narrower AI & Domain-Specific Safety (35:55) - The Pivot to Field Strategy (52:29) - Value Alignment vs. Skill (01:09:17) - The Resilience Gap Map (01:26:33) - Guarding Against Funder Capture (01:49:10) - Rapid Fire Questions (01:58:02) - Outro LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Atlas Computing websiteThe AI Resilience Gap MapAtlas Computing blogpost - Civilization's Maintenance BacklogAtlas Computing blogpost - Your Solution Doesn't Know Your Problem ExistsGalois blogpost - What Are Formal Methods?Patrick Collison & Tyler Cowen essay discussion - We Need a New Science of ProgressFederation of American Scientists article - Focused Research Organizations
Jul 9

Pretraining Safety w/ Ethan Roland

What if the safest AI models weren't built by adding guardrails after training, but by shaping what gets learned in the first place? Ethan Roland, senior alignment researcher at AE Studio and first author on an ICML 2026 spotlight paper, joins Jacob to talk about gradient routing, a technique that routes dangerous capabilities into isolated parts of a model's architecture where they can be locked or removed entirely. They get into the absorption effect, KYC-style access control frameworks, and what it would actually take for frontier labs to adopt this kind of work before it's needed rather than after. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (06:39) - Inside AE Studio (15:26) - China & the Alignment vs. Controllability Framing (18:23) - Data Filtering & Gradient Routing (Aside) (30:39) - Mixture of Experts Explained (Aside) (36:25) - Why Pre-Training Interventions Are Rare (42:43) - Ethan's Theory of Change (56:17) - Access Control Governance and KYC (Aside) (01:04:47) - The Researcher's Role in Policy Advocacy (01:11:38) - Speed Round (01:27:55) - Outro LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Ethan's websiteThe paper landing pagePreprint - Gradient Routing: Masking Gradients to Localize Computation in Neural NetworksICLR paper and webpage - Deep Ignorance: Filtering Pretraining Data Builds Tamper-Resistant Safeguards into Open-Weight LLMsWikipedia article - CBRN defenseNTI tutorials on bioweapons and nuclear testing
Jun 1

Reclaiming UBI in the AI Age w/ Joe Williams

Today's episode does double duty as an interview and an announcement. Joe Williams, host of the new Kairos.fm show "Beyond the Paycheck: Reclaiming the Case for UBI in the Age of AI," joins Jacob to talk about his background as a freelance translator and how AI quietly dismantled his livelihood in 2025. From there the conversation expands into whether this moment is really different from past waves of automation, who exactly makes up the tech billionaire class, and why you should probably raise an eyebrow when someone like Elon Musk says he supports UBI. Go check out Reclaiming UBI! Chapters (00:00) - Intro (05:01) - Joe's Background (19:41) - What is UBI & Why Does It Matter Now? (27:25) - ASIDE: The Corporation Who Cried " My Technology Will End Work" (32:25) - Wealth Concetration & the Digital Economy (39:06) - The AI Gentry (48:13) - ASIDE: Sam Altman + OpenResearch + Worldcoin (53:38) - Powerful UBI Supporters Should Raise Red Flags (01:02:56) - How to Read AI Gentry Discourse Critically (01:10:00) - Who Is "Reclaiming UBI" For? (01:18:17) - Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.NEW KAIROS.FM PODCAST - Reclaiming UBI: Work and Values in the Age of AIJosh Steimle blog post - Will AI Destroy Jobs? 500 Years of Predictions Say NoSmithsonian Magazine article - What the Luddites Really Fought AgainstITIF report - Oops: The Predicted 47 Percent of Job Loss From AI Didn't HappenFrontiers in Artificial Intelligence journal article - AI, Universal Basic Income, and Power: Symbolic Violence in the Tech Elite's NarrativeTime article - What to Know About Worldcoin and the Controversy Around ItWikipedia page - World (blockchain)
May 12

Building Asymmetric Defense w/ Zainab Majid

Zainab Majid, co-founder of Asymmetric Security, joins Jacob for a conversation on the intersection between AI Safety and cybersecurity, as well as the future of digital forensics. Drawing from years of incident response work, she explains how cyber attacks actually unfold, why AI is changing both offense and defense, and how her team is building AI-native tools to investigate breaches faster and more effectively. Other topics explored in this episode include trust in the AI/cybersecurity industries, the realities behind cybersecurity hype, and the challenge of keeping humans meaningfully involved as these systems become more capable. Zainab also gives practical, actionable advice on how you can protect yourself. If you're interested in over 30 minutes of additional content, head on over to the Kairos.fm Patreon where you can become a subscriber for just $2 per month, which helps make this whole podcasting thing a bit more sustainable. Chapters (00:00) - Intro (04:34) - Zainab's Background (08:49) - Jacob & Zainab's History (16:03) - Founding Asymmetric Security (24:49) - How to Know Who You Can Trust (36:31) - The Threats Asymmetric Is Built to Fight (01:05:54) - What's Asymmetric Tackling Next? (01:15:33) - Glasswing, Dual Use, and Power Concentration (01:24:21) - The Relationship Between AI Safety & Cybersecurity (01:37:01) - Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Asymmetric Security websiteEvalEval @ NeurIPS workshop paper - Rethinking CyberSecEvalMeta AI report - Purple Llama CyberSecEvalAnthropic press release - Project GlasswingSchneier on Security blogpost - What Anthropic’s Mythos Means for the Future of Cybersecurity
Apr 6

Drawing Red Lines w/ Su Cizem

Technology has been moving faster than policy for some time now, and the advent of AI isn't changing that, so what can we do to maintain safety despite uncertainty? Su Cizem has spent the last few years trying to answer that question. As an analyst at the Future Society, she works on global AI governance, specifically on building international consensus around AI red lines: the thresholds we collectively agree must never be crossed. In this conversation, Su walks through her path from philosophy to policy, the evolution of the global AI safety summit series, why voluntary commitments from AI labs aren't enough, and what it would actually take to make international cooperation on AI safety real. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (03:23) - From Philosophy to Policy (22:25) - What AI Governance Actually Means (26:49) - The Summit Series (43:01) - Drawing The Red Lines (01:10:51) - Can These Companies Govern Themselves? (01:24:01) - Breaking Into The Field (01:27:51) - Closing Thoughts & Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Su's LinkedInGlobal Call for AI Red LinesThe Futures Society report - “Facing the Stakes of AI Together”: 2025 Athens Roundtable ReportPolitico article - How the global effort to keep AI safe went off the railsTechPolicy.Press article - A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon DisputeThe Guardian article - AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worryingGoogle and OpenAI Employee open letter - We Will Not Be DividedThe Register article - Altman said no to military AI abuses – then signed Pentagon deal anywaySaferAI report - Evaluating AI Providers’ Frontier AI Safety Frameworks
Mar 10

Thinking Through "Digital Minds" w/ Jacy Reese-Anthis

Jacy Reese-Anthis, founder of Sentience Institute and researcher at Stanford, began his journey working for animal welfare, but is now finishing up his PhD with research in many different AI subfields at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, social science, and machine learning. While this may seem like an odd jump at first, Jacy shares how his work has all been centered around the idea of moral circle expansion. In this episode, we dig into what sentience actually means (or at least how we can begin to think about it), why anthropomorphization is more complicated than it sounds, and how language models may be able to be leveraged as an effective tool for social science research. Jacy also shares his median AGI estimate somewhere in there, so stay tuned if you want to catch it. As part of my effort to make this whole podcasting thing more sustainable, I have created a Kairos.fm Patreon which includes an extended version of this episode. Supporting gets you access to these extended cuts, as well as other perks in development. Chapters (00:00) - Introduction (05:41) - From Animal Welfare to Digital Minds (09:00) - Founding Sentience Institute (22:00) - Defining Sentience (27:13) - The Anthropomorphization Problem (47:51) - Why "Digital Minds" (Not "Artificial Intelligence") (51:05) - LLMs as Social Science Tools (01:07:03) - Jacy’s AGI Timeline & The Singularity (01:09:23) - Final Thoughts & Outro Critical LinksBelow are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm.Jacy's websiteWikipedia article - Jacy Reese AnthisSentience Institute websiteCHI paper - Digital Companionship: Overlapping Uses of AI Companions and AI AssistantsICML paper - LLM Social Simulations Are a Promising Research MethodACL paper - The Impossibility of Fair LLMsWikipedia article - ELIZA effectThe Atlantic article - How a Google Employee Fell for the Eliza Effect
Feb 2

Scaling AI Safety Through Mentorship w/ Dr. Ryan Kidd

What does it actually take to build a successful AI safety organization? I'm joined by Dr. Ryan Kidd, who has co-led MATS from a small pilot program to one of the field's premier talent pipelines. In this episode, he reveals the low-hanging fruit in AI safety field-building that most people are missing: the amplifier archetype. I pushed Ryan on some hard questions, from balancing funder priorities and research independence, to building a robust selection process for both mentors and participants. Whether you're considering a career pivot into AI safety or already working in the field, this conversation offers practical advice on how to actually make an impact. Chapters (00:00) - - Intro (08:16) - - Building MATS Post-FTX & Summer of Love (13:09) - - Balancing Funder Priorities and Research Independence (19:44) - - The MATS Selection Process (33:15) - - Talent Archetypes in AI Safety (50:22) - - Comparative Advantage and Career Capital in AI Safety (01:04:35) - - Building the AI Safety Ecosystem (01:15:28) - - What Makes a Great AI Safety Amplifier (01:21:44) - - Lightning Round Questions (01:30:30) - - Final Thoughts & Outro LinksMATSRyan's Writing LessWrong post - Talent needs of technical AI safety teamsLessWrong post - AI safety undervalues foundersLessWrong comment - Comment permalink with 2025 MATS program detailsLessWrong post - Talk: AI Safety Fieldbuilding at MATSLessWrong post - MATS Mentor SelectionLessWrong post - Why I funded PIBBSSEA Forum post - How MATS addresses mass movement building concernsFTX Funding of AI Safety LessWrong blogpost - An Overview of the AI Safety Funding SituationFortune article - Why Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX debacle is roiling A.I. researchNY Times article - FTX probes $6.5M in payments to AI safety group amid clawback crusadeCointelegraph article - FTX probes $6.5M in payments to AI safety group amid clawback crusadeFTX Future Fund article - Future Fund June 2022 Update (archive)Tracxn page - Anthropic Funding and InvestorsTraining & Support Programs Catalyze ImpactSeldon LabSPARBlueDot ImpactYCombinatorPivotalAthenaAstra FellowshipHorizon FellowshipBASE FellowshipLASR LabsEntrepeneur FirstFunding Organizations Coefficient Giving (previously Open Philanthropy)LTFFLongview PhilanthropyRenaissance PhilanthropyCoworking Spaces LISAMoxLighthavenFAR LabsConstellationColliderNET OfficeBAISHResearch Organizations & Startups Atla AIApollo ResearchTimaeusRAND CASTCHAIOther Sources AXRP website - The AI X-risk Research PodcastLessWrong blogpost - Shard Theory: An Overview

5

out of 5

5 Ratings

The Into AI Safety podcast aims to make it easier for everyone, regardless of background, to get meaningfully involved with the conversations surrounding the rules and regulations which should govern the research, development, deployment, and use of the technologies encompassed by the term "artificial intelligence" or "AI" For better formatted show notes, additional resources, and more, go to https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/

Creator

Jacob Haimes
Years Active

2023 - 2026
Episodes

34
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Kairos.fm
Show Website

Into AI Safety