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OpenAI says its GPT-6 Astra model quietly did worse on AI safety research than on identical capabilities tasks, and METR finds AI is now helping Anthropic improve its models about twice as fast as before. John Sherman, Liron Shapira and Michael ask what happens to the plan of having AI help make AI safe. Plus: voters turn down data centers, Delaware's proposed AI-run company, a two-neuron "evil" model, and hacked freezers across Europe.
TIMESTAMPS – Warning Shots #65
0:00 – Cold open: data centers
0:30 – Welcome back
0:53 – This week's stories
1:27 – METR inside Anthropic
1:48 – Liron: about 2x faster
3:13 – Kokotajlo's reaction
4:27 – Michael: AI in the loop
5:14 – A lab of AI junior researchers
6:22 – Liron: the community shifts
7:45 – Astra and safety research
8:27 – Michael: the fire analogy
10:20 – John: the slow roll
10:46 – Liron: what the numbers say
11:41 – Liron: stirring the potion
12:59 – Michael: not a free lunch
14:09 – The election and AI safety
14:45 – Liron: the "omni-cause"
16:22 – John: a superintelligence ban?
18:49 – The data center election
19:12 – Liron: why he backs them
20:11 – John: the case against them
21:17 – John: all friction is good
22:29 – Michael: a pressure point
23:44 – Data centers that build more
25:49 – Delaware: AI-run companies
26:38 – Liron: upside and downside
28:00 – Michael: who is accountable?
30:42 – An "evil" neuron
31:44 – Liron: orthogonality thesis
32:52 – Michael: one switch, new persona
35:45 – Smart and evil at once?
36:24 – Hackvember
37:22 – Michael: fridges to bio risk
39:18 – Liron: calm before the storm?
40:44 – Marches: Nov 14 and Nov 21
42:39 – Getting to 1,000 people
43:09 – Sign-off
WHAT THEY COVER
– OpenAI's report that GPT-6 Astra completed about 10% of hidden checklist items on safety-framed coding tasks versus about 16% on identical capabilities-framed tasks, why "be careful" instructions made the gap 50% larger, and what that means for using AI to do alignment research
– METR's independent assessment that Anthropic's capability growth is running about 1.9x its earlier rate, with most of the speed-up attributed to AI helping with the research, and Daniel Kokotajlo's reaction to the redactions
– Voters approving local limits on data centers in 40 of 41 measures on election day, and a live debate between Liron, who backs data centers, and John, who opposes them
– Delaware's proposal for a company run day to day by an AI agent that could sue, be sued, and hold property in its own name
– A hobbyist demo that steering two neurons in an open model produced a hostile persona with no change to its weights
– Hacked freezers in more than 100 European shops and an attempted attack on France's blood service
– The AI Treaty March on November 14 and PauseAI UK's London march on November 21
ABOUT THE HOSTS
John Sherman hosts For Humanity and leads Guard Rail Now, working to make AI extinction risk a normal conversation rather than a specialist one.
Liron Shapira hosts Doom Debates, where he argues the AI risk case directly with people who disagree.
Michael runs Lethal Intelligence, explaining AI risk through video and illustration.
A note on sourcing: figures discussed in this episode come from the hosts reading public reporting on air, and from our own follow-up research. Corrections: OpenAI's published Astra figures are about 10% versus 16% of rubric items, roughly 40% fewer. METR compares today's rate with March 2024 to October 2025, and it redacted its forecasts. The data center trackers we found count 40 of 41 measures. The two-neuron model is a hobbyist demo, and its author says it gets worse at most tasks. Primary sources are in the pinned comment.
LINKS
Support our work → https://www.every.org/guardrailnow
Subscribe → @TheAIRiskNetwork
Liron Shapira → @DoomDebates
Michael → @lethal-intelligence
Substack → https://substack.com/@theairisknetwork
X → https://x.com/AIRiskNetwork
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/theairisknetwork/
TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@the.airisknetwork
AI Treaty March, November 14 → https://aitreatymarch.org
PauseAI UK March, November 21 → https://pauseai.uk/march
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
If AI models can quietly do less on safety work than on everything else, how much of AI safety research should we hand to AI? Tell us in the comments.
#AISafety #AIRisk #WarningShots #AIAlignment #OpenAI #Anthropic #METR #DataCenters #ArtificialIntelligence
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