Welcome to AI in the AM: RL for EE, Oversight w/out Nationalization, & the first AI-Run Retail Store Nathan and Prakash speak with Sergiy Nesterenko of Quilter on reinforcement learning for circuit board design, Andy Hall on AI governance, and Andon Labs on an AI-run retail store. They also discuss AI progress, existential risk, and civic action.

For now, we are running these live streams as @CogRev_Podcast episodes

But we might spin it off into its own thing, so follow @AI_in_the_AM to make sure you see future live streams w/ @8teAPi

The next one is planned for Monday April 20 at 8:45am PT

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/welcome-to-...

"The AI has hired humans – they have an AI as a boss"

And... the AIs are becoming more ruthless – "they are very happy to lie", say @lukaspet & @axelbacklund

Visit @andonlabs new AI-operated store @ 2102 Union St in SF to experience an autonomously AI-operated business for yourself!

Training the AIs' Eyes: How Roboflow is Making the Real World Programmable, with CEO Joseph Nelson Roboflow CEO Joseph Nelson discusses why computer vision still trails language models and how his team uses techniques like Neural Architecture Search to build efficient, task-specific models, exploring global competition, real-world deployments, and emerging regulation.

The full episode includes a practical framework you can use to attack any computer vision challenge, and is a great way to catch up on computer vision in general.

Enjoy!

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/training-th...

As always, thanks to our sponsors for supporting The Cognitive Revolution

@AnthropicAI – Makes of Claude and Claude Code
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@GetVCX – the public ticker for private tech

The world is bigger than language.

@josephofiowa, CEO of @roboflow, describes his vision for a computer-vision-enabled good life, from low-pesticide farms to self-driving commutes to AI cavity scans.

And every piece of it is being built right now!

Scaling Intelligence Out: Cisco's Vision for the Internet of Cognition, with Vijoy Pandey Vijoy Pandey of Outshift by Cisco outlines his vision for an Internet of Cognition built from networked AI agents, explaining protocol-driven architectures, enterprise controls, and real-world multi-agent systems like Cisco's CAIPE, AGNTCY, and a healthcare demo.

Vijoy offers some of the most sophisticated thinking about the giga-agent future I've found anywhere.

+ a live demo of a 4-agent system that supports a patient in a healthcare setting spanning diagnostics, insurance, pharmacy, & scheduling.

Recommended!

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/scaling-int...

Thanks to our sponsors 🙏

@AnthropicAI - makers of @claudeai and Claude Code
@GetVCX by @fundrise - the Public Ticker for Private Tech
@TaskletAI - always-on AI agents that live in the cloud and consistently get RAVE reviews

Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch! 😉

"The entire industry has been chasing vertical scaling.

We've scaled these individual brains, but we haven't figured out how they can think together."

@vijoypandey of @outshiftbycisco is architecting *the Internet of Cognition* so we can scale intelligence not just UP but OUT

Your Agent's Self-Improving Swiss Army Knife: Composio CTO Karan Vaidya on Building Smart Tools Composio CTO Karan Vaidya explains a smart tool platform that lets AI agents access tens of thousands of tools across many apps, discussing discovery, security, feedback loops, and how robust skills reduce model lock-in for job-like agent use cases.

Composio is one of the best examples of the "Smart tool" pattern that I've been watching out for since the MCP paradigm was introduced.

Lots of great tidbits for AI engineers in this episode!

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/your-agent-...

Thanks to our sponsors 🙏
@composio — Tools that learn!
@Google — Makers of Gemini models & much more
@AnthropicAI — Creators of Claude & Claude Code
@GetVCX by @fundrise — the Public Ticker for Private Tech
@TaskletAI — AI agents that actually do the work

Will well-defined Skills commoditize the model layer?

@KaranVaidya6 of @composio says all frontier models reliably follow instructions

So "you get Opus to create a skill, then swap to Sonnet"

And with "translation" skills, you can easily swap providers too💡

A trend to watch!

I agree with @TheZvi: it's flagrant, shameful defection to focus one's effort on escaping the "permanent underclass"

And it won't work anyway!

Do you really think a few database records will save you when most humans aren't economically productive?

x.com/labenz/stat...

Zvi's Mic Works! Recursive Self-Improvement, Live Player Analysis, Anthropic vs DoW + More! Zvi Mowshowitz joins Nathan Labenz to survey the current AI middle game, from recursive self-improvement, job disruption, and AI endgame scenarios to the competitive landscape, Anthropic’s safety policies, p(doom), and how they each use AI in practice.

The full episode (nearly 3.5 hours!) covers recursive self-improvement, "permanent underclass" discourse, Live Player analysis, Anthropic's RSP update, Anthropic vs DoW, Zvi's latest p(doom) number, and lots more.

Dare I say ... Self-Recommending? :)

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/zvi-s-mic-w...

As always, thanks to our sponsors 🙏

@TaskletAI — AI agents that actually do the work
@GetVCX by @fundrise — the public ticker for private tech

"The reason people think of this as the end game is that they don't believe in the actual end game."

@TheZvi says that the Anthropic vs DoW conflict marks the beginning of the middle of the AI story, but the real end-game will be much crazier still.

🔗 ↓

Bioinfohazards: Jassi Pannu on Controlling Dangerous Data from which AI Models Learn Jassi Pannu of Johns Hopkins discusses how frontier AI heightens risks of engineered pandemics, proposing a Biosecurity Data Level framework and defense-in-depth measures to restrict dangerous biological data while enabling research.

More & more people – and maybe autonomous AIs too – will soon be able to create deadly viruses that could dramatically alter the trajectory of human history.

We should really do something about it!

Full episode: www.cognitiverevolution.ai/bioinfohaza...

As always, thanks to our sponsors:

@AnthropicAI – Claude Code created the above clips, and Anthropic has invested heavily in biosecurity
@getvcx – the Public Ticker for Private Tech
@TaskletAI – Check out the new Instant Apps
@framer – Build Better Sites, Faster – Start with AI

In 2012, researchers found that just 5 mutations would allow bird flu – which kills ~60% – to spread from human to human 😱

Gain-of-function research remains legal & now... AIs can help 🤖🧬

Jassi Pannu describes the sad state of biosecurity + the need for data access controls

Situational Awareness in Government, with UK AISI Chief Scientist Geoffrey Irving UK AI Security Institute Chief Scientist Geoffrey Irving discusses fragile theoretical understanding of ML, AISI’s frontier model evaluations and red teaming, and why current safety techniques may fall short, plus efforts to build stronger guarantees for AI safety.

Full episode on our website, well worth a listen!

www.cognitiverevolution.ai/situational...

As always, thanks to our sponsors:

@meetgranola — Make your meeting notes awesome
@AnthropicAI — Claude Code created these video clips
@getserval — Automate IT help desk with AI
@TaskletAI — Check out the new Instant Apps feature

Interested in sponsoring? Get in touch!

The UK AISI might be the most situationally aware government entity in the world today.

Today on @CogRev_Podcast, Chief Scientist @geoffreyirving surveys the AI landscape.

While jailbreaking frontier models is getting harder, the AISI Red Team has never failed. 👀

Envisioning a Positive AI Future, with Tim Reutemann, Author of Liquid Reign In this episode, Nathan sits down with Tim Reutemann, author of “Liquid Reign”. They discuss liquid democracy, reshaping political participation using AI and...

🎧 Full episode on our website: www.cognitiverevolution.ai/envisioning...

📺 On Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCW...

Can we avoid government abuse of mass surveillance in the AI era?

@TimReutemann says authorities should have to get a warrant AND brute force a crypto problem to access video, making dragnets prohibitively expensive

Any great American patriots building this? @PalantirTech?

Mathematical Superintelligence: Harmonic's Vlad & Tudor on IMO Gold & Theories of Everything Vlad Tenev and Tudor Achim from Harmonic explain how they built Aristotle, an AI system that reaches International Mathematical Olympiad gold-medal performan...

Check out the full episode: x.com/CogRev_Podc...

Also available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-01...

Thanks to our sponsors:

@meetgranola — Make your raw meeting notes awesome
@AnthropicAI — Makers of Claude
@framer — Enterprise website platform with AI wireframing
@blitzyai — Build enterprise software in days, not months
@TaskletAI — AI agents you can manage by email & SMS

"By 2030, we'll have maybe five theories that unify Quantum Mechanics & General Relativity, and we'll have to run high-energy experiments to figure out which one is right."

@tachim & @vladtenev of @HarmonicMath on Mathematical Superintelligence on @CogRev_Podcast

AI is becoming an engine of discovery.

Nation states are scrambling for position.

And automated R&D threatens to shake the snowglobe like never before.

Join us @ 3pm ET / 12pm PT, *Tomorrow*, Wednesday, Feb 11: x.com/i/broadcast...

6) @jeremiecharris of @GladstoneAI, co-host of "Last Week in AI", 2X Joe Rogan guest, author of "America’s Superintelligence Project", & one of the very best AI analysts

We'll talk about how he's maintaining situational awareness & what he's watching now

x.com/liron/statu...

5) @hlntnr on what happens "When AI Builds AI"

@CSETGeorgetown recently convened AI leaders, but couldn't establish consensus on how big a deal this will be or how fast it will go

→"Automated AI R&D is a major source of potential strategic surprise"

x.com/hlntnr/stat...

4) @owl_posting was recommended to me as "the Zvi of AIxBiology"

We'll unpack his new piece on the 3 main strategies companies are pursuing to automate wet lab work & close the RL loop for AI scientists – plus what @NOETIK_ai is doing in AI for Cancer

x.com/owl_posting...