Podcast · News

Scaling Laws

by Lawfare & University of Texas Law School · English · News

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 50 min
Latest: 6 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026 · 54 minNew

Hélène Landemore on Public Participation in AI Governance

Hélène Landemore , Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a fellow at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to examine who should decide what AI is for. Starting with Landemore’s recent Noema essay , the pair discuss why decisions about AI’s purpose, limits, and governance should not be left solely to elected officials, technical experts, and the companies building the systems. Landemore explains some key ideas--covering the fundamentals of…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

29 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Child Safety AI Policy at Scale with Vaishnavi J and Dave Willner

Dave Willner, co-founder of Zentropi, and Vaishnavi J., founder and principal of Vys, join Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, to examine how AI is affecting younger users and why existing child-safety responses often default to age gates, parental consent, and outright bans. The conversation then turns to their open-source teen self-harm and suicidal ideation policies, which use age-banded rules and a four-zone framework: remove, suppress with a warning, suppress from…
22 Sep 2026 · 52 min

Live from Columbia Law with Chloé Bakalar: What can constitutions teach us about governing AI?

Chloé Bakalar, ASI Ethics Lead at Responsible Superintelligence Institute (RESI) and a Senior Research Associate at University College London, joins Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, for a Scaling Laws Roadshow conversation recorded at Columbia Law School. Big thanks to Eliza Steffen for organizing a fantastic visit. Recorded on the eve of Constitution Day, Chloé and Kevin explore the purposes of political constitutions, the American experience with constitutional change, and debate the extent…
15 Sep 2026 · 47 min

Is Meta's Oversight Board a Model for AI Governance

Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and a member of Meta’s Oversight Board, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law, and guest co-host Kate Klonick to discuss what frontier AI companies can learn from the Oversight Board. Yoshino recently co-authored a Tech Policy Press piece with fellow Board member Ronaldo Lemos arguing that meaningful AI oversight should feature independent and representative overseers, external standards, and transparent, reasoned…
8 Sep 2026 · 38 min

Algorithmic Disgorgement with Christina Lee [Live From LawAI's Workshop on Law-Following AI]

Christina Lee , Visiting Associate Professor of Law and Privacy and Technology Law Fellow at George Washington University Law School, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, from the Institute of Law and AI’s Workshop on Law-Following AI in Cambridge, UK. They discuss her forthcoming article, Beyond Algorithmic Disgorgement: Remedying Algorithmic Harms . The conversation begins with the basics: what is algorithmic disgorgement, why did the FTC first use it in the Cambridge…
1 Sep 2026 · 50 min

Building AI Assurance Ecosystem with Bri Treece (PACT AI) and Dr. Rob Slone (UL Solutions)

Bri Treece, Executive Director of PACT AI, and Dr. Rob Slone, Chief Scientist & Innovation Officer at UL Solutions, join Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at Texas Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss a neglected layer of AI governance: the organizations that deploy AI in real-world products, services, and operations. They discuss why PACT AI was formed, what AI assurance can learn from other industries, and why evaluating AI cannot be a one-time exercise. The conversation also covers PACT AI’s 90-day formation process and UL Solutions’ pre-existing work…
28 Aug 2026 · 44 min

Founders & Founders: Brandon Mitchell of WriteSea

Brandon Mitchell, founder of WriteSea, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the growing role of artificial intelligence in workforce development. WriteSea’s platform provides AI-driven career guidance, helping job seekers refine resumes, practice interviews, and navigate modern hiring systems that increasingly rely on automated screening tools. As policymakers and the public writ large assess the extent to which AI will disrupt the labor market, Brandon's efforts warrant particular attention.…
25 Aug 2026 · 54 min

AI Consciousness with Anil Seth

Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to examine whether artificial intelligence could ever be conscious. Drawing on Seth’s essay, “ The Mythology of Conscious AI, ” the pair attempt to define consciousness, develop the strongest arguments for and against machine consciousness, and assess what the current evidence can—and cannot—tell us.…
18 Aug 2026 · 48 min

Matt Abrams on Trust and the Migration to the Digital Age

Matt Abrams, technologist, investor, and co-founder of $1 Billion for Trust, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the collapse of institutional trust and how AI may accelerate — or potentially help reverse — that trend. The conversation explores Matt’s work to rebuild trust in information ecosystems, interpersonal relationships, and major institutions. Along the way, the duo examine the relationship between AI, information integrity, labor disruption, institutional legitimacy, and democratic…
14 Aug 2026 · 42 min

Founders & Founders: Matthew Schwartz of Virgo

Matthew Schwartz, founder of Virgo, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss how AI is beginning to reshape gastroenterology. Virgo’s model is trained on one of the largest collections of endoscopy procedure videos ever assembled, opening new possibilities for earlier diagnosis, personalized treatment of diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, and faster clinical research. The duo also examine how medical imaging data can generate new “digital biomarkers,” what role AI might play in shortening…
11 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

Daniel Kokotajlo on AI 2040: Plan A

Daniel Kokotajlo, former OpenAI researcher and executive director of the AI Futures Project, joins Kevin Frazier, Director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at Texas Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, to detail his policy recommendation– AI 2040: Plan A . It’s a thorough analysis of a policy pathway to delaying superintelligence, which Daniel and his co-authors think is necessary to ensure that the disruptive effects of highly-capable AI systems do not outweigh the benefits. Kevin asks Daniel to explain scenario scrutiny, address feedback from other AI policy stakeholder such as Tom…
4 Aug 2026 · 50 min

DZ Kalman on the Role of Faith in AI Policy

DZ Kalman, fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, senior advisor at Sinai & Synapses, and host of Belief in the Future , joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore what religious traditions can teach AI governance. DZ and Kevin discuss religious responses to AI, Jewish technoculture, kosher supervision as a model for AI certification, and the limits of AI use in faith contexts. They also connect these traditions to contemporary debates about alignment,…
31 Jul 2026 · 42 min

Founders & Founders: Laura Davis of USLege

Laura Davis, founder of USLege, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to dive into how USLege is leveraging AI to transform the way professionals monitor and respond to government activity. USLege’s platform aims to be the answer to the prayers of many policy stakeholders. It captures and analyzes legislative hearings, regulatory discussions, and committee proceedings as they happen, surfacing policy signals that often emerge long before a bill is formally introduced. Kevin and Laura talk about the…
28 Jul 2026 · 27 min

Google's Kent Walker on Regulating Frontier AI

Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google and Alphabet, joins Kevin to discuss Google's proposal for a two-pronged approach to AI governance: a Frontier AI Regulatory Organization, which like FINRA, would operate as an independent, industry-based governance body overseen by a federal agency and the application of existing laws to widely-deployed, less capable systems. The two also discuss the timing behind this proposal and its relevance in light of the recent Hugging Face / OpenAI incident. Follow Kent: @kent_walker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
24 Jul 2026 · 51 min

The Politics and Politicking of AI with Assemblymember Alex Bores

Assemblymember Alex Bores ran for Congress on a platform that in many ways centered on AI policy. He therefore drew considerable support as well as substantial opposition from interest groups across the country. Though Bores lost in the Democratic primary, his experience is worth exploring in detail. Alan and Kevin dive in with some key questions: what did he hear from voters on AI? are everyday New Yorkers worried about benchmarks being saturated? how did the millions of dollars coming into the race change its dynamics? what does this early episode in the political aspects of AI signal for…
21 Jul 2026 · 42 min

Courtney Cox on AI in Adjudication [live from the Institute of Law & AI's Workshop on Law-Following AI]

Courtney Cox, Associate Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss her forthcoming article, Hardwiring Hercules? . It’s a great read that builds on Dworkin’s idea of a perfect adjudicator, Hercules. Courtney argues that the debate over a “right to a human decision” has missed a central problem: normative uncertainty. Machines may struggle to explain their decisions, but humans often struggle too—especially when judges are uncertain about what they ought to do. At…
17 Jul 2026 · 48 min

Founders & Founders: Nils Tracy of Authorship

Nils Tracy, founder of Authorship, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to detail the challenges and solutions to deploying AI in highly sensitive contexts. Authorship enables users to map their AI policies to myriad use cases--from on-device AI tools to those connected to the cloud. It's a direct effort to tackle concerns that as AI use cases become more frequent and varied deployers may struggle to ensure compliance with key policies and laws. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
14 Jul 2026 · 49 min

New paths to social mobility with Joe Seddon

Joe Seddon, Founder and CEO of Zero Gravity, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, to discuss AI, social mobility, higher education, and the future of opportunity. Zero Gravity is a UK-based platform that helps launch students from low-opportunity backgrounds into leading universities and prosperous careers. The conversation explores whether AI can scale the kinds of mentorship, admissions advice, tutoring, and career guidance that have historically been available only to…
10 Jul 2026 · 46 min

Founders & Founders: Adi Tantravahi of Cofactor

Adi Tantravahi, founder of Cofactor, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to talk about how AI can help cut through the administrative red tape that underlies and, in many ways, undermines the modern healthcare system. Cofactor’s AI platform focuses on denial management—an area where hospitals routinely lose revenue because insurance claims go unchallenged due to staffing constraints. Kevin and Adi unpack the economics of healthcare billing, why administrative overhead has grown so dramatically in…
7 Jul 2026 · 55 min

All Things Data Centers with Andy Masley

Andy Masley joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior editor at Lawfare, and Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare and associate professor at Minnesota Law, to unpack the increasingly contentious issues related to data centers. They discuss Andy’s efforts to challenge what he sees as misleading claims about data center water use, land use, electricity rates, and local community impacts. Be sure to check out Andy’s substack here . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
3 Jul 2026 · 50 min

Founders & Founders: Kal Clark of Zauron Labs

Kal Clark, co-founder of Zauron Labs, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explain how AI is already reducing diagnostic errors in radiology. Kal details how Zauron’s AI system functions as a second-look safety layer, reviewing imaging exams for high-impact missed findings before those results translate into patient outcomes. Kal and Kevin then discuss the scale of diagnostic error in modern healthcare, the institutional barriers that have prevented systematic second reviews, and how open-source AI…
30 Jun 2026 · 57 min

Lawfare Daily: 'The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI’—A Conversation with Cory Doctorow

Alan Rozenshtein, associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota and research director at Lawfare, and Kate Klonick, associate professor of law at St. John's University School of Law and a senior editor at Lawfare, spoke with science fiction novelist and technology journalist Cory Doctorow about about his new book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI , which argues that AI is being deployed to turn workers into "reverse centaurs" who serve machines rather than direct them, and that the economics of the AI industry add up to an unsustainable bubble. The conversation…
26 Jun 2026 · 48 min

Founders & Founders: Dhruv Diddi of Solo Tech

Dhruv Diddi, founder of Solo Tech, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the emerging frontier of Physical AI. Solo Tech builds infrastructure that allows developers to deploy AI models directly onto robots and edge devices rather than relying on cloud-based computation. In other words, think about allowing AI systems to operate in remote areas that have traditionally struggled to leverage the latest and greatest tech. Kevin and Dhruv look into what it takes to move AI systems out of digital…
23 Jun 2026 · 53 min

"The God Test": AI as Cosmic Reckoning, with Robert Wright

Alan Rozenshtein, Research Director at Lawfare, spoke with Robert Wright—author of Nonzero , The Moral Animal , The Evolution of God , and Why Buddhism Is True , and the writer behind the NonZero Newsletter and podcast—about his new book, The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning , which argues that AI is an evolutionary threshold on the scale of the entire history of life, that we are collectively failing to grasp its magnitude, and that rising to the challenge will require both new forms of international governance and an expansion of human moral and cognitive…
19 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

Justified Posteriors join Scaling Laws: Two economists and two lawyers walk into a podcast studio

In this cross-pod episode, Alan and Kevin join Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin of Justified Posteriors to explore a big question: what should AI be for? The conversation begins with Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical. The group discusses how economists should think about the Church’s role in AI debates, what counts as an AI-related market failure, whether moral and religious institutions can help address social harms, and whether such interventions risk crowding out private action or local experimentation. The episode then turns to the emerging idea of positive alignment. A recent paper,…
16 Jun 2026 · 48 min

Explain to Shane (Tews) and Scaling Laws

Shane Tews, host of Explain to Shane and nonresident senior fellow at AEI, joins Kevin Frazier, director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute, for a cross-post conversation about the AI and cyber executive order, workforce disruption, and the future of education. They also share their respective research agendas for the summer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
12 Jun 2026 · 50 min

Lawyering on the Frontier with Janel Thamkul

Janel Thamkul, former frontier counsel team member at Anthropic, joins Kevin Frazier to discuss what it means to practice law at the frontier of AI. This episode starts with a review of Janel’s fascinating and varied background. Next, she walks through her initial exploration of a career in art before eventually pivoting to the law based on some very formative experiences. Kevin and Janel then investigate some of the most pressing and open questions related to transformative AI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
9 Jun 2026 · 43 min

Radical Optionality: Governing Transformative AI, with Christoph Winter and Charlie Bullock

Alan Rozenshtein, Research Director at Lawfare and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Law & AI (LawAI), spoke with Christoph Winter, LawAI Founding Director and Assistant Professor of Law and AI at the University of Cambridge, and LawAI Senior Research Fellow Charlie Bullock, about their new paper "Radical Optionality: Governing Transformative AI Under Uncertainty," which argues that, given the possibility of transformative AI within the next decade and deep uncertainty about its capabilities and risks, governments should aggressively build the institutional capacity to regulate…
5 Jun 2026 · 52 min

Tom Davidson on the Importance of AI Character

Tom Davidson joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss AI timelines, explosive economic growth, and the increasingly urgent debate over “AI character” — the behavioral traits and decision-making tendencies embedded into advanced AI systems. Drawing on Davidson’s recent paper , “The Importance of AI Character,” which he co-authored with Will MacAskill, their conversation explores how the character of future AI systems may influence democratic governance, military conflict, institutional trust, and even…
2 Jun 2026 · 46 min

Governing the Frontier with Owen Larter of Google DeepMind

Owen Larter, Senior Director and Head of Frontier Policy and Public Affairs at Google DeepMind, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to provide an inside look at how DeepMind approaches frontier governance. The conversation moves beyond the familiar U.S.-EU-China framing of AI policy to examine international coordination after the recent U.S.-China summit, Google DeepMind’s national AI partnerships, the role of the Frontier Model Forum, and the challenge of expanding AI adoption. Kevin and Owen also discuss…

About Scaling Laws

Scaling Laws explores (and occasionally answers) the questions that keep OpenAI’s policy team up at night, the ones that motivate legislators to host hearings on AI and draft new AI bills, and the ones that are top of mind for tech-savvy law and policy students. Co-hosts Alan Rozenshtein, Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas and Senior Editor at Lawfare, dive into the intersection of AI, innovation policy, and the law through regular interviews with the folks deep in the weeds of developing, regulating, and adopting AI. They also provide regular rapid-response analysis of breaking AI governance news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scaling Laws is a English news podcast from Lawfare & University of Texas Law School. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Lawfare & University of Texas Law School
Language: English
Category: News
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 50 min
Latest episode: 6 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1607949880
Rights: Lawfare

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