The launch of OpenAI’s GPT-5 has ushered in a panoply of views on the future of AGI and end-user applications. Does the platform’s aggressive router presage a future of lobotomized AI responses driven more by compute efficiency than quality? Will new chip models be able to make up the difference? And how will OpenAI, which recently hired Fidji Simo from Instacart to become CEO of Applications, expand its revenue beyond API calls and consumer subscriptions?These are huge questions which will ricochet throughout the tech economy. Thankfully, we have a veteran hand this week to go over it with us in the form of Dylan Patel, founder, CEO, and chief analyst of Semianalysis. He’s the guru everyone reads (and listens to), covering the intricacies of chips and compute for a readership of hundreds of thousands of subscribers.Joining host Danny Crichton as well as Lux’s Shahin Farshchi and Michelle Fang, the quartet discuss the questions above plus how Mark Zuckerberg is transitioning Meta Reality Labs, the hopes and dreams of new chip startups, the future of AI workloads, and finally, Intel after the U.S. government’s purchase of 10% of its shares.

It’s fun to play a game of superlatives with China. From the awe-inspiring and cyberpunk scale of the metro trains cruising through apartment blocks in Chongqing to the stupendous rate of its shipbuilding, housing construction and waterworks, China has shown that it can build like no other. That includes the just-announced Medog Hydropower Station, which at $167 billion would be one of the largest and most expensive construction projects ever seen. Behind all of this activity is a state organized for engineering, designed for speed and scale.

That’s one half of the thesis of Breakneck, the new book out by Dan Wang, which was already long listed for book of the year by the Financial Times. The other half of the thesis is that America is ruled by a lawyerly society, one that holds up projects across years of red tape and lawsuits in the name of everything from noise pollution to just good old-fashioned trolling. Can we have growth without the lawyers? And what are the costs when every project can’t be debated to its most minute detail?

Dan and host Danny Crichton talk about Dan’s trips across China, the massive growth he witnessed while living in the country for six years, and comparisons between China, America, South Korea and Japan, and why the virtuous cycle of construction is so absent from America today.

Few agencies have been more central to global affairs than the aptly-named Central Intelligence Agency. Often shrouded in mystique both cultivated and unasked for, the agency has been at the center of some of the most important foreign policy successes of the United States — such as the search for bin Laden — and also some of the country’s gravest errors, including the Iraq War WMD debacle. Yet, the agency faces profound pressure today on what its present and future mission should be in a world of increasing competition between great powers.That mission is the subject of Tim Weiner’s new book “The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century.” Weiner has been chronicling the agency since the 1980s, from its covert action program in Afghanistan to the austere budget years of the 1990s to the rise of counterterrorism and now, the pivot to Russia, China, Iran and other U.S. adversaries.Alongside host Danny Crichton, the two talk about Weiner’s history reporting on the agency, the challenge of regrouping to confront future threats versus present ones, how the agency has struggled on intelligence gathering in China, the relationship between the FBI and CIA, and finally, what’s next for the agency under the current Trump administration.

Building great Riskgaming scenarios is far more of an art than science. The designer needs to understand the players — what they know and what they don’t — and then carefully construct a landscape of decisions that has fidelity to the real world while not being overwhelming. Parsimony is key, and that means a designer really has to grok the fundamentals of the issue under hand to be able to offer the best experience.

That’s where Randy Lubin shines. Through his studio Leveraged Play, he has designed a whole suite of fun and profound policy simulations, focusing on the intricacies between tech and culture. Now, he’s also designing a new Riskgaming scenario for Lux, focused on AI, automation and the future of cities, exploring policy issues like employment and housing.

With host Danny Crichton, Randy talks about his design process, what’s going on with his upcoming scenario, how AI is changing the future of game design, and a bit about his game design community Foresight Games.

By now, we’re all familiar with the crisis that has faced America’s chip manufacturing industry. Intel remains the last bastion of homegrown chips (if we exempt new developments from TSMC and Samsung). Yet, Intel’s stock has been bludgeoned, down more than 55% over the past five years as Nvidia skyrocketed about 1,475% in the same period. What would it take to rebuild America’s chip capacity? Do we have a chance to build our own TSMC?

That’s the question that Kyle Harrison has been asking. He’s a general partner at Contrary Capital, and alongside his co-author Maxx Yung, the two wrote a new blockbuster report called, “Building an American TSMC.” It’s a magisterial look at the accidental history, enervating present and intricate future of semiconductor fabrication in the United States, and what it would really take to maintain and grow this critical capability.

Kyle and host Danny Crichton talk about Intel’s recent and historical woes, how to avoid another massive manufacturing failure like General Electric and Boeing, the complex barriers to entry in the semis market, and finally, why ecosystem development particularly around specialized labor is so crucial to protect.

There has been a massive influx of defense funding into Europe since Putin’s war on Ukraine started in early 2022. A sea change is underway, with Germany loosening its debt brake and countries from Poland and the United Kingdom to the Baltics all reseting their expectations for defense this century. But after several years, it’s time to take a retrospective look and ask, “What’s next?”To do that, host Danny Crichton talks with Eric Slesinger today. Eric is general partner of 201 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on advancing freedom and autonomy in Europe. He’s based in Madrid, and brings a deep local perspective on the future of the Old Continent and its new tech.The two talk about the current defense tech situation in Europe, how EU countries are trying to band together around procurement, the history and future of gray zone and multi-domain combat, and where Europe competes and even out-excels America in the defense world.

Science feels under attack. The Trump administration has proposed budget cuts of up to one-third of all basic research funding, breaking a generations-long, bipartisan consensus that what is good for science is good for America. Even if not fully enacted by Congress, even the hint of cuts has already had an extraordinary effect on the perceptions of higher education and science leaders on America’s stability. Lux recently hosted a dinner with a group of these luminaries, and the general conclusion is that science institutions will need to radically change in the years ahead to adapt.

Host Danny Crichton wanted to talk more about this subject, and then he realized that we just published a great episode on our sister podcast, The Orthogonal Bet. Lux’s scientist-in-residence, Sam Arbesman, had on Kenneth Stanley, the senior vice president of open-endedness at Lila Sciences. Kenneth is also the author of “Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, a widely praised book exploring the nature of creativity and discovery.”

The two talked about the future of research institutions, and how new forms of organizational designs might be the key to unlocking the next frontiers of knowledge in the 21st century. Their conversation delves into the tradeoffs between traditional and novel research institutions, how to carve out space for exploratory or “weird” work within large organizations, and how research itself can serve as a tool for navigating disruption.

AI and education seem like a match made in heaven, and certainly, much work and dollars are being spent trying to bring the two together. As more and more people eschew reading and outsource deep thought to Deep Research though, do we still have a chance to build up our critical thinking skills?

It’s an open question, and one that host Danny Crichton has been exploring this summer. In this episode, he narrates excerpts on the concepts of the psychology of decision making, risk-taking and dopamine to consider the broader question of whether we can ever truly grapple with radical uncertainty in the age of AI. Included in today’s episode are Ian Curtiss, Graham Norris, Nicholas Rush Smith, Kelly Clancy, Paul Collier and Brian Klaas.

Our guest today, Mike Sexton, believes that the AI singularity has arrived, and somehow, it ended up “on page C3 in the newspaper.” What he’s getting at is that the tools we have at our fingertips today like ChatGPT, NotebookLM and others are already so diversely capable, we have reached a point of no return when it comes to future societal change. We need to get ahead of those changes, embrace them, and offer new paths for everyone to take advantage of these tools.

Mike serves as the Senior Policy Advisor for AI and Digital Technology at Third Way, the prominent centrist Democratic think tank that emerged from the Clinton administration and the pro-tech, pro-competition left that was at the core of national power in the 1990s. He researches the changing policy landscape around AI technologies, and argues that Democrats need a new direction other than anti-capitalism or existential risk doomerism.

Joining hosts Danny Crichton and Laurence Pevsner, the three talk about the rise of effective altruism and effective accelerationism (or e/acc), why improving government services is so critical for the future of the Democratic Party, AI technologies in robotics and research, and finally, why a bipartisan consensus is emerging on protecting America’s AI industry going forward.

Over the past few decades, an astonishing pattern has taken place: Americans no longer migrate. From a peak of roughly one third of the country moving cities in a single year, today, migration rates have declined and are now in line with the Old Continent of Europe. The dynamism of the American economy was predicated on all kinds of people seeking out work and building families, but now that mobility is gone — and we need to find out why.

Yoni Appelbaum, a senior editor at The Atlantic, just published his new book, “Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity.” In it, he explores the critical implications of a country that is no longer seeking fortune, from the decline of job growth and opportunities to the high prices of housing, and ultimately, the immiseration of the American dream. He lays down the blame on many, from Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses to communities that have made exclusion their modus operandi.

Alongside hosts Danny Crichton and Laurence Pevsner, the three talk about why Jane Jacobs has gone from hero to villain in a generation, why the history of zoning portends further challenges to reform, how the abundance movement is changing the tenor of this debate, how Covid-19 acted as a natural experiment for mobility, and finally, some solutions on how to help Americans live where they want and build a more prosperous future.