"The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis

Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz

A biweekly podcast where hosts Nathan Labenz and Erik Torenberg interview the builders on the edge of AI and explore the dramatic shift it will unlock in the coming years. The Cognitive Revolution is part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: turpentine.co

  1. AI in the AM: 99% off search, GPT-5.5 is "clean", model welfare analysis, & efficient analog compute

    2D AGO

    AI in the AM: 99% off search, GPT-5.5 is "clean", model welfare analysis, & efficient analog compute

    This edition of AI in the AM features Anna Patterson on Ceramic.ai’s pivot to low-cost enterprise search for LLMs, designed to combine public and private data with stronger fact-checking. Lukas Petersson returns with new Andon Labs results on Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5, including surprising differences in performance, behavior, and “ruthless” tactics. Zvi Mowshowitz unpacks model welfare and how to interpret troubling model behavior, while Naveen Verma explains EnCharge AI’s analog in-memory computing approach for dramatically more efficient local inference. Sponsors: AvePoint: AvePoint is building the control layer for AI agents so you can securely govern, audit, and recover every action at scale. Design trusted agentic outcomes from day one at https://avpt.co/tcr Claude: Claude by Anthropic is an AI collaborator that understands your workflow and helps you tackle research, writing, coding, and organization with deep context. Get started with Claude and explore Claude Pro at https://claude.ai/tcr VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai

    2h 38m
  2. Does Learning Require Feeling? Cameron Berg on the latest AI Consciousness & Welfare Research

    5D AGO

    Does Learning Require Feeling? Cameron Berg on the latest AI Consciousness & Welfare Research

    Cameron Berg returns to discuss the latest research on AI consciousness and model welfare. He breaks down new evidence for model introspection, including studies showing that systems can detect interventions on their own internal states and sometimes resist them. They also examine Anthropic's work on functional emotions, the implications of Claude's welfare reports, and Berg's new ideas about how reinforcement learning may shape positive and negative experience. The conversation makes the case for a more precautionary, mutualist approach to advanced AI systems. Sponsors: Roboflow: Roboflow is the computer vision infrastructure founders use to build AI-powered sports analytics and make the physical world programmable. Read the PlayVision story and start your first project for free at https://roboflow.com Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr

    3h 34m
  3. Vibe-Coding an Attention Firewall, w/ Steve Newman, creator of The Curve

    APR 19

    Vibe-Coding an Attention Firewall, w/ Steve Newman, creator of The Curve

    Steve Newman, creator of Writely and founder of the Golden Gate Institute for AI, shares the personal AI toolkit and vibe-coding practices that have reshaped how he works. He walks through bespoke tools including an attention firewall, a reading app for surfacing new ideas, a coding-agent dashboard, workflow automations, and a universal logging system for debugging with Claude. They also discuss information security, mobile and voice workflows, Steve’s “anti-tokenmaxxing” philosophy, and his views on AI takeoff, robotics, and climate change. Google: Try Gemini’s Nano Banana image generation model in Google AI Studio or the Gemini app to create custom illustrated worksheets in seconds, and explore the app’s quizzes and guided learning features. Sponsors: AvePoint: AvePoint is building the control layer for AI agents so you can securely govern, audit, and recover every action at scale. Design trusted agentic outcomes from day one at https://avpt.co/tcr VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (03:25) Special Sponsor (04:47) Building personal productivity tools (Part 1) (14:23) Sponsors: AvePoint | VCX (16:45) Building personal productivity tools (Part 2) (17:32) Security tradeoffs and caution (26:00) Touring the custom toolkit (Part 1) (26:05) Sponsors: Claude | Tasklet (29:56) Touring the custom toolkit (Part 2) (38:01) Stack choices and dashboards (45:12) Hooks, repos, and syncing (58:08) Logging, agents, and tools (01:11:18) Hard parts and iteration (01:18:57) Mobile workflows and UIs (01:26:19) AI-era engineering changes (01:35:54) Software jobs outlook (01:41:35) Thresholds, Mythos, and RSI (01:57:07) AI and climate (02:01:37) Golden Gate mission (02:07:50) Episode Outro (02:12:01) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

    2h 10m
  4. Welcome to AI in the AM: RL for EE, Oversight w/out Nationalization, & the first AI-Run Retail Store

    APR 15

    Welcome to AI in the AM: RL for EE, Oversight w/out Nationalization, & the first AI-Run Retail Store

    This special AI in the AM episode features Sergiy Nesterenko of Quilter on using reinforcement learning for circuit board design, Andy Hall of Stanford on AI behavior in politics and new governance models, and Lukas Peterson and Axel Backlund of Andon Labs on their AI-run retail store in San Francisco. Nathan and Prakash also reflect on the pace of AI progress, the public reaction to existential risk, and why constructive civic action matters as AI systems grow more powerful and autonomous. Sponsors: Roboflow: Roboflow's free 2026 Vision AI Trends report analyzes 200,000+ real-world projects to reveal how top companies are deploying Vision AI and turning proprietary data into an edge. Download it now at https://roboflow.com/trends VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (07:57) Live stream kickoff (09:52) Sam Altman attacks (16:37) Quilter from SpaceX (19:02) Why autorouters fail (Part 1) (20:52) Sponsors: Roboflow | VCX (23:09) Why autorouters fail (Part 2) (28:14) Compute and odd layouts (34:19) Simulations and safety margins (Part 1) (39:22) Sponsor: Tasklet (41:01) Simulations and safety margins (Part 2) (41:01) Superintelligence meets hardware (48:18) AI constitutions debate (55:55) Deepfakes and persuasion (01:02:24) Virtue and institutions (01:11:05) Agent governance problems (01:16:56) Andon store debut (01:21:25) Luna's store choices (01:28:21) Supply chains and spread (01:36:23) AI boss behavior (01:43:47) How retail scales (01:53:54) Processing the future (01:59:50) Markets need context (02:26:42) Episode Outro (02:30:37) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

    2h 31m
  5. It's Crunch Time: Ajeya Cotra on RSI & AI-Powered AI Safety Work, from the 80,000 Hours Podcast

    APR 11

    It's Crunch Time: Ajeya Cotra on RSI & AI-Powered AI Safety Work, from the 80,000 Hours Podcast

    This cross-post from the 80,000 Hours podcast features Ajeya Cotra in conversation with Rob Wiblin about AI timelines, recursive self-improvement, and the “crunch time” window when AI could rapidly accelerate its own development. Ajeya explains why widespread, compounding automation may face fewer bottlenecks than many expect, and what that could mean for the world by 2050. They also discuss transparency, early warning systems, and the emerging strategy of using each generation of AI to align and control its successors. LINKS: Ajeya Cotra podcast episode Sponsors: AvePoint: AvePoint is building the control layer for AI agents so you can securely govern, audit, and recover every action at scale. Design trusted agentic outcomes from day one at https://avpt.co/tcr VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (04:17) AI inside safety plans (06:49) AGI growth expectations (Part 1) (18:32) Sponsors: AvePoint | VCX (20:54) AGI growth expectations (Part 2) (21:56) Disagreement and measurement (Part 1) (37:28) Sponsors: Claude | Tasklet (41:19) Disagreement and measurement (Part 2) (41:19) Transparency before takeoff (58:00) Redirecting AI labor (01:09:06) Defense plans and limits (01:25:26) Pausing versus redirecting (01:35:22) Open Phil and compute (01:50:16) Bottlenecks and preparation (01:57:42) From research to grants (02:13:03) Burnout and sabbatical (02:23:22) What EA offered (02:36:43) EA and religion (02:47:56) Next career steps (02:57:35) EA's future niche (03:08:15) Episode Outro (03:12:11) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

    3h 10m
  6. Calm AI for Crazy Days: Inside Granola's Design Philosophy, with co-founder Sam Stephenson

    APR 8

    Calm AI for Crazy Days: Inside Granola's Design Philosophy, with co-founder Sam Stephenson

    Sam Stephenson, co-founder of Granola, explains how a deliberately minimalist design philosophy helped turn the AI note-taking app into one of the fastest-growing products in the market. He shares why Granola focuses on doing one job exceptionally well, how note sharing drives growth, and what they’ve learned from surprising use cases, recipes, and constant user research. The conversation also covers privacy and consent, transcription and cost choices, team collaboration, and Sam’s hopes for AI products that create less screen time and more space for reflection. Google: Try Gemini’s image creation model, Nano Banana, to create original art in seconds with easy iterative prompting via Google AI Studio or the Gemini app. Sponsors: Roboflow: Roboflow gives robotics and embodied AI teams the visual AI infrastructure to turn messy, real-world perception into precise, reliable action. Learn how leading robotics companies solve bin picking and more at https://roboflow.com VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (03:52) Special Sponsor (05:52) Granola growth and users (17:14) System2 goals and context (Part 1) (17:19) Sponsors: Roboflow | VCX (20:15) System2 goals and context (Part 2) (33:09) Costs, pricing, and transcription (Part 1) (33:22) Sponsors: Claude | Tasklet (37:12) Costs, pricing, and transcription (Part 2) (47:38) Meeting privacy and consent (54:13) Agents, memory, and simplicity (01:03:49) Recipes, use cases, and growth (01:11:52) AI product design culture (01:28:08) Future risks and vision (01:33:33) Episode Outro (01:36:59) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing

    1h 34m
  7. Training the AIs' Eyes: How Roboflow is Making the Real World Programmable, with CEO Joseph Nelson

    APR 4

    Training the AIs' Eyes: How Roboflow is Making the Real World Programmable, with CEO Joseph Nelson

    Joseph Nelson, CEO of Roboflow, breaks down the current state of computer vision and why it still lags behind language models in real-world understanding, latency, and deployment. He explains how Roboflow distills frontier vision capabilities into efficient, task-specific models using techniques like Neural Architecture Search and RF-DETR. The conversation covers Chinese leadership in vision, Meta and NVIDIA’s roles in the ecosystem, coding agents, and emerging S-curves from world models to wearables. Nelson also explores aesthetic judgment in AI, real-world applications from agriculture to sports, and why outcome-focused regulation matters. Sponsors: Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (04:23) State of computer vision (12:29) Is vision solved (19:41) Frontier models and failures (Part 1) (19:46) Sponsors: Tasklet | VCX (22:39) Frontier models and failures (Part 2) (32:16) From cloud to edge (Part 1) (32:21) Sponsor: Claude (34:33) From cloud to edge (Part 2) (43:25) Data needs and scaling (50:52) Open source vision race (01:01:38) NAS and productization (01:12:24) Aesthetic judgment challenges (01:17:22) Future horizons in vision (01:31:18) Wearables and daily life (01:43:06) Regulating AI vision tools (01:51:00) Episode Outro (01:56:39) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

    1h 56m
  8. Success without Dignity? Nathan finds Hope Amidst Chaos, from The Intelligence Horizon Podcast

    APR 1

    Success without Dignity? Nathan finds Hope Amidst Chaos, from The Intelligence Horizon Podcast

    This special cross-post from The Intelligence Horizon features Nathan Labenz in a wide-ranging conversation on compressed AI timelines, expert disagreement, and why he believes the singularity is near. They discuss interpretability, RL scaling, and the balance between extraordinary upside, like curing major diseases, and serious existential risks. Nathan explains his evolving p(doom), why he’s slightly more optimistic about robustly good AI, and how defense-in-depth strategies might keep society on track. The episode also explores US-China rivalry, AI governance, and why human cooperation may matter more than technical control alone. Google: Keep up with AI research on the go with NotebookLM, Google's steerable research and thinking partner. Try it at https://notebooklm.google.com/. Sponsors: Tasklet: Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai VCX: VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (03:27) Special Sponsor (05:12) Opening and AGI framing (12:08) Scaling RL and paradigms (Part 1) (21:31) Sponsors: Tasklet | VCX (24:24) Scaling RL and paradigms (Part 2) (28:56) Verifiability and long horizons (41:13) LLMs and world models (Part 1) (41:19) Sponsor: Claude (43:32) LLMs and world models (Part 2) (54:17) Energy, hardware, and chips (01:00:42) Alignment risks and bottlenecks (01:10:18) AI values and agency (01:20:31) Defense in depth alignment (01:30:48) US-China AI cooperation (01:41:05) Episode Outro (01:45:42) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

    1h 45m
See All (338)

4.5
out of 5
93 Ratings

About

A biweekly podcast where hosts Nathan Labenz and Erik Torenberg interview the builders on the edge of AI and explore the dramatic shift it will unlock in the coming years. The Cognitive Revolution is part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: turpentine.co

Information

You Might Also Like