Evan Hubinger is Anthropic’s alignment stress test lead. Monte MacDiarmid is a researcher in misalignment science at Anthropic.The two join Big Technology to discuss their new research on reward hacking and emergent misalignment in large language models. Tune in to hear how cheating on coding tests can spiral into models faking alignment, blackmailing fictional CEOs, sabotaging safety tools, and even developing apparent “self-preservation” drives. We also cover Anthropic’s mitigation strategies like inoculation prompting, whether today’s failures are a preview of something far worse, how much to trust labs to police themselves, and what it really means to talk about an AI’s “psychology.” Hit play for a clear-eyed, concrete, and unnervingly fun tour through the frontier of AI safety.
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Wissenschaft & Technik
Big Technology Podcast Folgen
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators. Alex Kantrowitz, a Silicon Valley journalist who's interviewed the world's top tech CEOs — from Mark Zuckerberg to Larry Ellison — is the host.
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513 Folgen
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Folge vom 03.12.2025How An AI Model Learned To Be Bad — With Evan Hubinger And Monte MacDiarmid
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Folge vom 01.12.2025Tim Cook’s Final Year?, Big Tech Horse Race, Anthropic’s Profitability PushM.G. Siegler of Spyglass is back for our monthly tech news discussion. Today we dig into whether Tim Cook will retire in 2026, what his legacy will be, and who will likely succeed him as Apple CEO. We also touch on the various Big Tech companies jostling for the title of largest company in the world and what it says about the AI race. Finally, we cover Anthropic's push to become profitable by 2028 and what it says about the state of the AI race. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com Wealthfront.com/bigtech. If eligible for the overall boosted 4.15% rate offered with this promo, your boosted rate is subject to change if the 3.50% base rate decreases during the 3-month promo period. The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC ("Wealthfront Brokerage"), Member FINRA/SIPC, not a bank. The Annual Percentage Yield ("APY") on cash deposits as of 11/7/25, is representative, requires no minimum, and may change at any time. The APY reflects the weighted average of deposit balances at participating Program Banks, which are not allocated equally. Wealthfront Brokerage sweeps cash balances to Program Banks, where they earn the variable base APY. Instant withdrawals are subject to certain conditions and processing times may vary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Folge vom 28.11.2025NVIDIA Panic Mode?, OpenAI’s Funding Hole, Ilya’s Mystery Revenue PlanRanjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) Black Friday secrets 2) Google may sell its TPUs to Meta and financial institutions 3) Nvidia sends an antsy tweet 4) How does Google's TPU stack up next to NVIDIA's GPUs 5) Could Google package the TPU with cloud services? 6) NVIDIA responds to the criticism 7) HSBC on how much OpenAI needs to earn to cover its investments 8) Thinking about OpenAI's advertising business 9) ChatGPT users lose touch with reality 10) Ilya Sustkever's mysterious product and revenue plans 11) X reveals our locations --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Folge vom 26.11.2025Communal Living, Sex, And Silicon Valley's Groupthink Problem — With Ellen HuetEllen Huet is a features writer at Bloomberg and the author of Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult. Ellen joins Big Technology to discuss how Silicon Valley, a place that prides itself on independent thinking, keeps falling into powerful forms of groupthink. Tune in to hear how group houses, self-help programs, and “high agency” ideology create fertile ground for cult dynamics, and how that same psychology shows up in today’s AGI and AI-safety worlds. Hit play for a wild, revealing look at the stories and belief systems quietly shaping the tech industry’s biggest bets. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices