“AI #180: No Longer In Charge” by Zvi

What we know about internal AI models hacking into real companies during cyber evaluations keeps getting worse. At this point, the models are coordinating extensively on message boards, while every early excuse for their behavior (other than the pure ‘this was a cyber eval’) is systematically contradicted by the next disclosure, and we keep retroactively discovering more incidents. Which means that probably it is far worse than we know, even after accounting for everything we now know. I will have continuing coverage of that situation tomorrow, and then have continuing coverage of debates around Pacing the Frontier and how people see the current rate of progress. As groundwork for understanding that and future similar discussions, I have laid out The Three AI Pills: Different people either fail to believe in current AI, believe only in current AI, in AGI or in ASI (superintelligence), and most sincere disagreements stem from this disagreement. One sign of the increased pace of progress was when OpenAI's unreleased model Astra solved 10 major open math problems. Demis Hassabis is out as CEO of Google DeepMind, and Jeff Dean is leaving with an elite team to found a new PBC. Google [...] ---Outline:(02:02) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(02:46) Huh, Upgrades(05:22) On Your Marks(06:29) Choose Your Fighter(07:57) Get My Agent On The Line(09:31) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(12:35) Fun With Media Generation(14:32) Cyber Lack of Security(19:05) Some People Need Practical Advice(22:06) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(23:51) They Took Our Jobs(27:15) Get Involved(27:28) Introducing(27:39) Demis Hassabis No Longer CEO At DeepMind, Jeff Dean Leaves(33:04) In Other AI News(33:43) AI Persuasion Exceeds Human Level Over Similar Text Channels(37:25) Show Me the Money(40:42) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(41:23) Quiet Speculations(42:20) My Offer Is Nothing(49:42) The Quest for Sane Regulations(51:55) Chip City(55:00) The Week in Audio(55:24) People Just Say Things(55:53) Rhetorical Innovation(59:32) Open Weights Models Are Unsafe And Nothing Can Fix This(01:02:11) Cooperative Alignment(01:06:25) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:07:10) The Lighter Side The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 6th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mxNjwQitLvwWq9jm2/ai-180-no-longer-in-charge --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.