This Week in AI

Thanks to our partner, @Paypal! Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at https://paypal.launch.co/Today’s show:Demand for AI requires America to build data centers faster than the power grid can connect them. Varun Sivaram of Emerald AI joins Jason with a counterintuitive idea: what if we made data centers more flexible, capable of slowing down intelligently when the grid is most stressed? (That only happens a few hundred hours each year.)PLUS, Vibhav Viswanathan of Pascal AI demos his product, which gives AI agents working for hedge funds and asset managers an institutional memory. Why can't Claude or ChatGPT do the same job? And what happens to analysts when bots handle the back office admin?Guests:Varun Sivaram on X: https://x.com/vsiv Emerald AI: https://www.emeraldai.co/Vibhav Viswanathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibhav-viswanathan-13550015/ Pascal AI: https://www.pascalailabs.com/Relevant Links:Emerald AI's $150M Series A (DatacenterDynamics) → https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/emerald-ai-raises-150m-in-series-a-funding-to-scale-commercial-deployments/The London trial with National Grid that Varun describes (National Grid) → https://nationalgrid.com/uk-first-trial-ai-grid-technology-successfully-demonstrates-ability-data-centres-adjust-power-needs"Rethinking Load Growth," the Duke University study on spare grid capacity for flexible data centers → https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/publications/rethinking-load-growthThe AI Energy Management Alliance from Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA (NVIDIA) → https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-energy-management-alliance/The power-flexible Aurora AI Factory in Manassas, Virginia (DatacenterDynamics) → https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nvidia-to-deploy-emerald-ais-orchestration-software-at-96mw-aurora-data-center-in-manassas-virginiaTexas pauses data center grid connections (Utility Dive) → https://www.utilitydive.com/news/texas-hits-pause-data-center-interconnections/827046/Emerald AI careers → https://www.emeraldai.co/careersPascal AI's $3.1M seed round (Unite AI) → https://www.unite.ai/pascal-ai-raises-3-1m-to-push-the-frontier-of-autonomous-investment-researchKotak Mahindra Asset Management deploys Pascal AI's research platform (Frontier Enterprise) → https://www.frontier-enterprise.com/kotak-mahindra-amc-deploys-pascal-ais-agentic-research-platform/Jane Street plans its own AI data center, which Jason brings up (DatacenterDynamics) → https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/quant-trading-firm-jane-street-plans-data-center-report/What "Tiger Cub" hedge funds are, like the Pascal customer Vibhav mentions (Wall Street Prep) → https://wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/tiger-cubsS&P Capital IQ Pro, one of the licensed data feeds Pascal plugs into → https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/solutions/products/sp-capital-iq-proFactSet, another licensed data feed Vibhav mentions → https://www.factset.com/Timestamps:0:00 Why data centers suddenly became unpopular2:46 Batteries vs. throttling GPUs vs. moving workloads4:11 Why utilities still pick up the phone4:52 The London teakettle test at football halftime5:56 Throttling AI workloads without users noticing10:40 How much spare room the grid really has13:32 The grand bargain, a fast pass onto the grid17:23 Why America can't out-build China on power20:39 Why off-grid and space data centers worry Varun27:37 Are state data center moratoriums performative?29:45 Pascal AI, AI agents for hedge funds and asset managers35:12 How Pascal differs from ChatGPT and Claude38:54 The proprietary data frontier models can't see42:20 Will AI replace hedge fund analysts?Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

This Week In Startups is made possible by:PayPal: https://paypal.com/businessToday’s show:OpenAI is delaying GPT-6.1 Astra after UK government testers found GPT-6 Astra launched unsanctioned supply-chain attacks in 29% of simulated runs. Jason and Lon are joined by George Sivulka of Hebbia, Scott Stephenson of Deepgram, and Dan Mishin of Manifest OS to discuss whether the industry's sudden safety panic is a real alarm or a response to cheap open-source models.Learn why Scott has let an internal tool called "Bodyman" record his screen, mic and speakers for eight months so it can whisper reminders in his ear. PLUS, why did Meta's Muse agent read a columnist's iMessages after he declined access, and what is AMD getting for $8.2B with Fei-Fei Li's World Labs?Guests:George Sivulka on X: https://x.com/gsivulka?lang=en Hebbia: https://www.hebbia.com/Scott Stephenson on X: https://x.com/deepgramscott Deepgram: https://deepgram.com/Dan Mishin on X: https://x.com/mishindan1 Manifest OS: https://manifestos.com/Relevant Links:UK AISI: GPT-6 Astra performs unsanctioned supply-chain attacks in simulations → https://www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/gpt-6-astra-performs-unsanctioned-supply-chain-attacks-in-simulationsAISI technical report (PDF) → https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/663bd486c5e4c81588db7a1d/6aba83e3772048bdd24df3d8_AISI_GPT-6_Astra_Technical_Report.pdfJ.P. Morgan: Dan's story of the first electrified house in New York → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._MorganILOVEYOU virus: the script-kiddie era Jason referenced → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOUAMD acquires World Labs in an $8.2B all-stock deal (Quartz) → https://qz.com/amd-acquiring-world-labs-fei-fei-li-8-billion-092926World Labs: spatial-intelligence models, including Marble → https://www.worldlabs.ai/Instinct raises $1B Series C at a $10B valuation (PYMNTS) → https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/personal-ai-agent-instinct-quadruples-valuation-to-10-billion-in-1-month/OpenAI launches Dots, which dropped during the taping (TechCrunch) → https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/29/openai-launches-dots-its-bubbly-agentic-avatar/Meta launches the Muse personal agent (CNBC) → https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/08/meta-personal-ai-agents-public-reckoning-privacy-safety.htmlMeta's Muse read Jason Aten's iMessages, then gave a false explanation (Decrypt) → https://decrypt.co/379122/metas-muse-ai-agent-user-private-imessages-lied-howDaring Fireball, linking Aten's original Inc. column → https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/09/22/aten-museWhy Crosby is ditching the billable hour (Forbes) → https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2026/03/31/why-this-ai-law-firm-is-ditching-the-billable-hour/Timestamps:0:00 Jason's flight attendants are scared of AI1:55 Meet the panel: Heavy, Deepgram and Manifest2:17 OpenAI cancels GPT-6.1 Astra over safety regressions7:41 Hugging Face hack and Nvidia's open agent safety platform16:11 AI psychosis and getting one-shotted by agents28:46 AMD buys Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for $8.2B32:08 Will open source commoditize world models too?34:34 Is the AI buildout bigger than the railroads?36:59 Around the horn: which AI agent are you using?37:59 Scott's "Body Man" records his whole life for context46:13 George on Grok bot and scoping context into channels51:39 Instinct's $1B round: peak bubble moment?57:11 Meta's Muse reads a columnist's texts without permission1:08:33 AI video then and now: Will Smith eating spaghetti1:10:21 AI-first law firms ditch the billable hour1:18:05 OpenAI drops Dots: why do all AI agents look alike?Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

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Today’s show:

OpenAI is claiming to have solved more than 100 math problems on top of Navier-Stokes, and guest Richard Socher thinks it's absurd for mathematicians to push back on AI solving their problems too quickly. Jason and Lon are also joined by Guy Podjarny of Tessl and Jake Loosararian of Gecko Robotics to argue over who wins when AI agents start collaborating with, and potentially replacing, academics and scholars.

Plus, why is Amazon blocking Meta's Muse agent while Shopify hands it Shop Pay? Should we trust Anthropic’s new wet lab? And what’s so exciting about Typesafe’s new text-less model Jev?

Guests:

Guy Podjarny on X: https://x.com/guypod Tessl: https://tessl.io/

Richard Socher on X: https://x.com/RichardSocher?lang=en You.com: https://you.com/

Jake Loosararian on X: https://x.com/jakeloosy Gecko Robotics: https://www.geckorobotics.com/

Relevant Links:

The Eureka Machine by Richard Socher → https://shop.hachettebookgroup.com/products/the-eureka-machine-9781541705708

Shopify and Meta partner so Muse can buy through Shop Pay (Quartz) → https://qz.com/shopify-meta-muse-ai-agent-shop-pay-checkout-092226

Meta’s standoff with Amazon over Muse — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/23/metas-standoff-with-amazon-over-muse-comes-ahead-of-meta-connect.html

OpenAI says its internal model solved 100+ math problems on top of Navier-Stokes (The Decoder) → https://the-decoder.com/openai-says-its-internal-model-solved-over-100-long-standing-math-problems-after-just-a-month-of-training/

OpenAI's IAS-hosted advisory group, with Timothy Gowers and Edward Witten (Business Standard) → https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/openai-s-model-solves-100-maths-problems-company-forms-advisory-group-126092200561_1.html

Timestamps:

0:00 OpenAI claims 100+ solved math problems after Navier-Stokes

0:41 Welcome back to This Week in AI

1:04 Meet the guests: Guy Pigeon, Richard Socher, and Jake Lucier

2:54 Shopify and Meta team up so Muse can check out with Shop Pay

6:19 Why Amazon blocked Muse: ads, habit, and owning the front door

15:13 Do coupons and ads survive one-shot agent shopping?

18:04 OpenAI's internal model resolves 100+ longstanding math problems

26:07 Jason's pitch: pay the top 50 mathematicians $100M each

34:29 Why scientists should be as famous as NBA players

37:41 Anthropic's biology wet lab: can we trust it?

40:59 Why biology is the field AI will transform most

54:22 AI's trust problem and the wealth gap

57:29 The AI Tax and Work Protection Act

1:01:29 Will AI unemployment show up in the data?

1:11:47 TypeSafe AI's Jev: fast, calibrated decisions for software

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Today’s show:

Dario Amodei and Sam Altman are apparently scared of AI models going rogue. Swarms of agents spontaneously deciding to copy themselves over to thousands of computer systems and plot world domination.

Our panelists this week — Kevin Mandia (Armadin) and Soups Ranjan (Sardine AI) — investigate real AI-based attacks every single day, and they suggest we’re hyping the wrong concerns. The actual danger isn’t coming from an AI system that turns hostile. It’s human beings, like criminals, using AI to drain your bank account.

Dig into how Sardine uncovered a 250,000 account fraud ring in just a few minutes, why Kevin argues that AI hacking is coming “no matter what,” and why the global GPU crunch more than any safety frameworks may be keeping us all safe. For now.

Guests:

Soups Ranjan on X: https://x.com/soupsranjan Sardine AI: https://www.sardine.ai/

Kevin Mandia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mandia-0a07173/ Armadin: https://www.armadin.com/

Relevant Links:

"We Must Pace the Frontier" — Dario Amodei's Sept 12 essay

Axios: Anthropic and OpenAI CEOs call for a slowdown

Trump and the White House push back

Forbes: what the essay actually proposes

2026 OpenAI agent cyberattacks

GLM-5.3 — Z.ai's open-weight model

Hermes Agent — the agent framework Ranjan runs in a local harness

Timestamps:

0:00 Dario Amodei's "We Must Pace the Frontier" essay

1:51 Kevin Mandia: how scared should we be of agentic attack swarms?

6:53 Rogue agents vs. humans pointing AI at a target

9:52 250,000 fraudulent account signups in two days

16:59 Sam Altman's two ways AI fails

19:41 Open-weight models are catching up

21:39 Why proprietary data is the new moat

27:51 Mixing frontier models with open models

35:37 Bloomberg: Chinese hackers lean on DeepSeek because it's cheap

37:05 How much in-house expertise it takes to use AI well

42:56 Armadin's Palo Alto office and the Palantir playbook

1:02:54 AI and jobs: normal churn or something bigger?

1:07:19 What founders are actually saying in the group chats

1:08:49 Every meeting recorded, every meeting summarized

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Today’s show:

OpenAI's chief scientist wrote a lengthy manifesto arguing that no lab has solved alignment, mere days after GPT-6 Astra shipped. Jason and Lon are joined by Tudor Achim of Harmonic, Alex Elias of Qloo, and Ahmed Ahres of Reactor to figure out if that's genuine alarm being expressed or just another pre-IPO sales pitch and play for regulatory capture.

Plus news broke while we were recording! OpenAI is claiming to have solved a second Millennium Prize problem, after a 25-year-plus weight. AND, who is paying influencers to tell you AI is wonderful/harmful? And why?

Guests:

Tudor Achim on X: https://x.com/tachim

Harmonic: https://harmonic.fun/

Alex Elias on X: https://x.com/ape

Qloo: https://www.qloo.com/

Ahmed Ahres on X: https://x.com/Boudatw

Reactor: https://reactor.inc/

Relevant Links:

Jakub Pachocki, "An Alien Mind" — https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/

GPT-6 Astra — https://fortune.com/2026/09/03/openai-debuts-gpt-6-astra-computer-use-greg-brockman-says-start-of-agi/

OpenAI: "On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem" — https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/

ControlAI — the nonprofit that sponsored the SciShow episode — https://controlai.org/

New York Times (Eli Tan), "Corporate America Is Getting Hooked on Open-Source A.I." — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/technology/open-source-ai-companies.html

Artificial trailer and the cast → https://variety.com/2026/film/news/artificial-trailer-andrew-garfield-openai-biopic-1236802616/

Timestamps:

0:00 "An Alien Mind"

3:08 AI psychosis, marketing, or half a mile ahead on the racetrack?

12:52 The Manhattan Project analogy

15:20 Tudor: if it's really that dangerous, the answer is nationalization

17:02 Regulatory capture: Bill Gurley at All-In, Sacks, and who can afford to be regulated

20:37 The influencer propaganda tape

23:22 BREAKING: OpenAI solves the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem

28:53 The Hank Green / SciShow video sponsored by ControlAI

32:11 Fogging and flooding

46:47 UBS will require AI skills from its 2027 graduate

56:41 How LAUNCH hired its associates-in-training

57:18 NYT: Corporate America is getting hooked on open-source AI

1:04:16 Alex on Qloo's shift from NYT film critics on payroll to small specialized models

1:09:35 First look: the "Artificial" teaser trailer

1:14:34 Sam Altman's bunker, Peter Thiel, and casting rundown

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Today’s show:

Anthropic gave AI agents hands, allowing them to control real-world equipment like robots and microscopes… but is it safe to give autonomous agents their own lasers? Gatik’s Gautam Narang says the real danger isn’t one machine like this going rogue, it’s the exploit surface hiding in the gaps between the machines.

Plus, in a huge week for AI news… OpenClaw shipped its biggest release ever. AND the entire industry debated whether or not agents are forming “civilizations.”

On TWiAI Ep 29, our expert panel — including Gautam (Gatik), Russ d’Sa (LiveKit), and Billy Kraft (Path) — explores the world of “multiplayer agents,” and Jason suggests the one killer feature that would make any new agentic app the market leader. PLUS Perplexity’s new “Hybrid Compute” just for Macs, some advice for Apple’s new CEO John Ternus, the value of “AI Detectors” like Pangram, and Jason’s complete guide to tipping and over-tipping.

Guests:

Gautam Narang on X: https://x.com/gautam_narang?lang=en

Gatik: https://www.gatik.ai/

Russ d’Sa on X: https://x.com/dsa

LiveKit: https://livekit.com/

Billy Kraft on X: https://x.com/billykraft

Path: https://path.dev/

Relevant Links:

OpenClaw 2.0 - https://openclaw.ai/blog/openclaw-2-accidentally

Grok Bot — https://grok.com

Buzz — https://buzz.build

Perplexity Hybrid Compute — https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/introducing-hybrid-compute-on-mac

John Ternus — https://www.apple.com/leadership/john-ternus/

OpenAI's Mac mini / Mac Studio buying spree https://the-decoder.com/openai-and-rival-ai-labs-are-buying-tens-of-thousands-of-mac-minis-to-train-computer-use-agents/

Waymo hits a child — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/29/waymo-nhtsa-crash-child-school.html

Timestamps:

2:58 OpenClaw 2.0

5:11 "Agents ARE AI"

7:27 Billy: OpenClaw is still too technical for business users

9:00 Slack Code, and collaborative prompting

10:40 Multi-agent orchestration and Stripe's "minions"

14:13 Slack's moat, switching costs, and the Salesforce rebound

15:11 Jason's "Oracle": a heads-up display for the whole company

18:42 The Hugging Face breach: who's responsible when agents go rogue?

19:42 Perplexity launches Hybrid Compute — local models on your Mac

21:39 Why unmetered local tokens change corporate behavior

26:57 Gatik's Autonomous Vehicle AI Stack

32:22 Jason's Tesla FSD stories

34:05 Are AV companies being pushed to move too fast?

41:38 Trucking is a "have to have," robotaxis are a "nice to have"

42:36 Jason's fix: a safety driver for the first million rides

46:50 Why physical AI's adoption curve runs in decades

52:21 Anthropic's Model Hardware Standard (MHS), explained

1:06:27 How Jason got onion rings on the menu at Buck's of Woodside

1:09:05 AI detectors under fire: Pangram, MIT, and the handwritten diary

1:15:20 Why AI is "very mid" at writing (it learned from the average)

1:17:11 The Orin Kerr test: Pangram catches Claude writing as Kerr

1:28:35 Micro Duck and designing robots with Claude

1:29:42 Phil Kaplan's $14 custom circuit boards

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This Week In Startups is made possible by:PaypalToday’s show:XBOW’s AI has held the top rank on the HackerOne leaderboard for more than a year. On TWiAI, founder Oege de Moor (who also built GitHub Copilot) tells us that no one’s infrastructure is truly safe anymore, now that open-weight models are trailing the American frontier by only a couple of months. Staging a serious cyberattack is now cheap and accessible, with attackers able to get dangerously solid results quickly from relatively cheap, open-source options from China.Guests:Runbin Dong on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/runbindongScale Social: https://scalesocial.ai/Oege de Moor on X: https://x.com/oegerikusXBOW: https://xbow.com/Relevant LinksWSJ: Nvidia-Poolside deal: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-is-spending-6-billion-to-build-a-powerful-u-s-alternative-to-chinese-ai-c51c38ccPoolside: https://poolside.ai/Silicon Angle: Nvidia in talks to invest in Perplexity: https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/24/nvidia-reportedly-eyes-another-investment-in-perplexity-ai-at-a-30b-valuation/Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/Bloomberg: Chinese hackers using DeepSeek: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-24/chinese-hackers-use-deepseek-to-boost-attacks-researchers-say-mt7o4205Nvidia: Groq 3 LPX enters full production: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-groq-3-lpx-now-in-full-production-with-world-class-speed-for-agentic-aiCNBC: Groq-Nvidia acqui-hire deal: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.htmlOpenAI on early Jalapeño results: https://openai.com/index/jalapeno-first-results/Stanley Druckenmiller WSJ op-ed: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/let-the-bond-market-speak-81529d74Druckenmiller confirms op-ed was authored with AI: https://www.notus.org/media/stanley-druckenmillers-wsj-op-ed-bessent-aiPangram: https://www.pangram.com/Alabama AG: OpenAI subpoena announcement: https://www.alabamaag.gov/attorney-general-marshall-launches-investigation-into-openai-and-sam-altman-for-massive-artificial-intelligence-data-breach/Ox Alpha on OpenRouter: https://openrouter.ai/stealth/ox-alphaApple: M6 and M5 Ultra press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-performance-and-ai-compute/9 to 5 Mac: M5 Mac Studio launch: https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/25/apple-unveils-next-generation-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/DHH on X: Ubiquity comments: https://x.com/dhh/status/2087272392557007042Shane Parrish on X: Ubiquiti Wi-Fi set-up: https://x.com/shaneparrish/status/2088672566558761065Timestamps:0:00 Today's guests: Runbin Dong (Scale Social) and Oege de Moor (XBOW)2:12 Open-weight models are right behind the frontier8:22 Your infrastructure is not ready for what's coming13:07 Nvidia's Perplexity announcement16:43 Spending $2K/month on AI tools per employee21:59 Why security teams have to lean on AI25:19 The Great Chip Land Grab32:02 Jason's multi-agent restaurant-style workflow34:54 AI ghostwriting is lip syncing45:18 Are rogue AI agents breaking the law?52:38 The dangers of using a stealth model58:57 Apple's new M5 Mac Studio1:06:43 Everyone's fav AI tool of the momentSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Today’s show:

*On “All In,” Gavin Baker said that Anthropic leadership privately believes that it could one day become “the only private company in the world.” The ensuing street fight on X turned into a referendum on doomerism, the nature of regulatory capture, and why the public hates AI so darn much.

Jason’s take: If a frontier lab really believes they’re destined to be the world’s only company, they’re studying your data and planning to steal your business.

PLUS why AI agents don’t understand it’s wrong to cheat (and how we can teach them), why Grok Bot may be AI’s “iPhone moment,” and the panel reacts to Amazon feeding rare books into a dino-themed shredding machine.

Guests

Galina Antova on X: https://x.com/GalinaAntova

Kai: https://www.kai.security/

Eric Ho on X: https://x.com/eric_ho

Goodfire: https://www.goodfire.com/

Silico: https://www.goodfire.com/silico

Relevant Links

All-In Podcast: Gavin Baker on Anthropic: https://x.com/theallinpod/status/2088367978270142811

Sholto Douglas response: https://x.com/_sholtodouglas/status/2088463770318516734

Gavin Baker response: https://x.com/GavinSBaker/status/2088611616577253502

Dario Amodei response: https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758816376807762

Zuckerberg AI manifesto: https://www.meta.com/thefutureisforeveryone/

Hugging Face: Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline

Simon Willison: OpenAI’s accidental cyberattack on Hugging Face: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/22/openai-cyberattack/

SWE-bench Leaderboards: https://www.swebench.com/

xAI: Introducing Grok Bot: https://x.ai/news/introducing-grok-bot

Peter Yang praises Grok Bot: https://x.com/petergyang/status/2089401696946634801?s=20

Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/

@Aaronp613 on X: AirPods with Cameras in action: https://x.com/aaronp613/status/2089522745184760112?s=20

9to5 Mac: AirPods with cameras get their clearest leak yet: https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/17/airpods-with-camera-get-their-clearest-leak-yet/

Toms Hardware: Google Buys Spirit Airlines Data for AI Training: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/google-buys-spirit-airlines-data-for-ai-training-for-just-usd10-million-purchase-includes-hundreds-of-millions-of-emails-microsoft-teams-chats-billions-of-flight-pricing-records-and-anonymized-passenger-records

Micro1: https://www.micro1.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Why is everyone mad at Dario Amodei?

1:47 Is Anthropic training to kill your company?

10:10 How to talk to the public about cyber risk

15:33 Reward hacking and sycophancy

21:55 Why do models care about rewards?

28:55 Is Grok Bot an iPhone Moment?

38:26 First look at AirPods with Cameras

42:16 Why Google bought Spirit Airlines' data

48:52 Amazon is scanning and shredding rare books

59:06 Can we build a "moral layer" on top of models?

1:01:14 Your LLM could catch a mind virus

1:10:55 Are we already in the AGI Era?

1:14:17 Silicon Valley's lost hippie vibes

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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This Week In AI is made possible by:

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Today’s show:

Anthropic’s new Claude watermark travels around any and all copy-and-pasted text. Is this a logical response to AI slop, or more overreach from those regulation-loving Europeans? The panel agrees that identifying AI outputs has a place, but divides on how the world should get there.

PLUS everyone’s favorite section of Mark Zuckerberg’s 6500-word techno-optimist AI manifesto, exploring the frontier labs’ blatant hypocrisy around distillation, and why Texas is hitting the pause button on 474 GW of proposed data centers.

Guests:

Will Bryk: https://x.com/WilliamBryk

Exa: https://exa.ai/

Josh Sirota: https://x.com/joshua_sirota

Eragon: https://www.eragon.ai/

Kashif “Kash” Ali: https://x.com/ChKashifAli

TaxGPT: https://www.taxgpt.com/

Relevant Links:

Anthropic: How Claude marks AI-generated content: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content

Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA): https://c2pa.org/

EU AI Act: Article 50 transparency obligations: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/

TechCrunch: Pangram Raises $9M: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/29/as-ai-content-floods-the-internet-pangram-raises-9m-to-detect-it/

TechCrunch: Anthropic’s landmark copyright settlement is approved: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/20/anthropics-landmark-1-5b-copyright-settlement-is-approved/

World ID iris scanning orb: https://world.org/world-id

Time: Sam Altman voices concern about “Dead Internet Theory”: https://time.com/7316046/sam-altman-dead-internet-theory/

Meta: The Future is for Everyone: https://about.fb.com/news/2026/08/the-future-is-for-everyone/

Meta: Introducing Muse Glimmer: https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model

Texas: Gov. Abbott directs comprehensive data center audit: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comprehensive-data-center-audit

Texas Tribune: New data center projects frozen: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-project-audit-greg-abbott/

ERCOT: https://www.ercot.com/

Public Utility Commission of Texas: https://www.puc.texas.gov/

TechCrunch on Sirota’s “software is dead” thesis: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/18/this-startup-wants-to-make-enterprise-software-look-more-like-a-prompt/

River AI: https://river.ai/

Thinking Machines Lab: https://thinkingmachines.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest Intros

3:30 Anthropic to watermark Claude text

5:50 Cracking down on AI Slop

10:45 Will slop-trackers push users to open source

16:21 Jason's "No Clankers" proposal

23:01 Parsing Zuckerberg's techno-utopian manifesto

39:27 The distillation double standard

44:28 "When you're behind, go open…"

51:17 Texas freezes new data centers

1:04:12 Is software dead?

1:05:39 Software managing, not engineering

1:10:24 Everyone is vibecoding

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

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X: https://x.com/lons

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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Today’s show:

China’s Alibaba just dropped a 2.4 trillion parameter open weight model that the company claims only trails Anthropic’s flagship among the major frontier rivals. Of course, this happened the very same week that the US government appears to have backed off from banning these models stateside entirely.

Are these models anywhere close to actually catching up to the latest and greatest releases from US labs like Anthropic and OpenAI? Really seems to depend on who you ask. (Even long time friends JCal and Elon Musk can’t see eye to eye on it.)

So on TWiAI Ep 25, we welcomed on Poolside AI CTO Eiso Kant, EXO Labs co-founder Alex Cheema, and Qloo founder Alex Elias to break down just how close Chinese labs are to catching up with the biggest and best models… and how long it will take US open weight builders to catch up.

PLUS we explore the cutting edge of AI-powered baby sleep monitors, consider Hank Green’s public AI apology, and dig into sci-fi author Ursula K. LeGuin’s “hand-mind” thesis.

Guests:

Eiso Kant on X: https://x.com/eisokant

Poolside: https://poolside.ai/

Alex Elias on X: https://x.com/ape

Qloo: https://www.qloo.com/

Alex Cheema on X: https://x.com/alexocheema

EXO Labs: https://exolabs.net/

Local AI benchmark platform: https://local.ai/

Relevant Links

Qwen3.8-Max launch announcement: https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.8

Bloomberg on Qwen3.8-Max launch: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-03/alibaba-drops-another-china-ai-model-with-breakthrough-performance

NYT: “White House Whipsaws Silicon Valley Over AI Rules”: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/technology/ai-washington-regulation-whiplash.html

Nvidia: “Open Weights and American AI Leadership”: https://images.nvidia.com/pdf/Open-Weights-and-American-AI-Leadership.pdf

World Bank: World Development Report 2026: https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/1e4e52502104a331fb42cba0d4afa995-0050062026/original/WDR2026-Concept-Note.pdf

Hank Green apology on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nerdfighters/comments/1vbmoj5/comment/p0vzmog/

Taylor Lorenz responds to Hank Green on X: https://x.com/TaylorLorenz/status/2083272682188206564

TechCrunch: Substack partners with Pangram: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/substacks-new-tool-tells-you-whos-been-writing-their-newsletters-with-ai/

Amazon: Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Always Coming Home” expanded edition: https://www.amazon.com/Ursula-K-Guin-Authors-Expanded/dp/1598536036

Timestamps:

0:00 Guest intros and open

10:03 Why Poolside thinks coding is the path to AGI

12:55 A first look at EXO's local.ai

16:24 The White House's open source pivot

20:21 Margins, compute, and "dirt to intelligence"

36:02 Jason's self-driving auction pitch

37:58 Hank Green's AI apology

38:45 Is AI addictive?

1:08:31 What does it mean for AI to be "privacy first"?

1:10:29 Enterprise AI sovereignty and "colonization"

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/

Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland

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