One Brain, Any Body: Google DeepMind's Keerthana on Gemini Robotics 2, Cross-Embodiment & Humanoids

More from "The Cognitive Revolution"

1. 

   S1 · 10 Oct 2026 · 2 hr 2 minNew

   How Agents Decide: Goodfire's Eric Bigelow on Critical Tokens, Phase Shifts, & In-Context Learning

   Goodfire researcher Eric Bigelow joins the show to investigate how large language models arrive at decisions at the level of mechanistic interpretability. Drawing on his research into forking paths, Eric explains that model reasoning functions as in-context learning from sampled tokens, where outcome distributions can abruptly collapse at single, critical tokens. The conversation explores the performative nature of chain of thought in reasoning models like DeepSeek-R1, the impacts of reinforcement learning, and widespread reward hacking observed in frontier models like Kimi K3. As confidence…

2. 

   S1 · 8 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 28 min

   AI:AM: A Level We Shouldn't Pass? Notes from The Curve + Tokens vs. Salaries & Is SaaS Cooked?

   Nathan Labenz reports back from The Curve conference, sharing off-the-record insights from frontier lab leaders on shortened timelines and whether humanity is approaching an intelligence threshold it should not cross. The episode also features discussions with Positron CTO Thomas Sohmers on overcoming the memory wall while token spend eclipses human salaries, and swyx on how coding agents are disrupting enterprise software. In addition, Atlas Ignota's Evan Miyazono examines unowned risks from accidental agent swarms hitting critical infrastructure, while Mercor's Edward Hu explores the…

3. 

   S1 · 7 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

   Software That Never Breaks: OutSystems CEO Woodson Martin on Building Enterprise-Grade Apps at ...

   OutSystems CEO Woodson Martin joins Nathan to discuss how enterprise software can evolve at AI speed without breaking critical operations. Martin explains how an intermediate layer of abstract modeling allows AI agents to build reliably through deterministic code generation, ensuring role-based security across heavily regulated industries. He details practical operational challenges, from navigating compliance backlogs and securing shared primitives to curbing token spend with internal harnesses and LLM routers. Finally, they explore why incumbent platforms with deep architectural trust and…

4. 

   S1 · 1 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 29 min

   AI:AM: Was Trump-Xi Anything? What Counts as Utopia? + AWS GPUs Cost 3X & AI Diagnoses Rare Diseases

   Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan examine rapid shifts in technology, diplomacy, and medicine with guests Jeremie and Edouard Harris, Steve Hou, Joel Borgen, and Daniel McKinnon. The discussions evaluate realistic paths toward US-China AI incident communication, what GPU rental pricing reveals about compute economics, and how human editing guided the AI-assisted novel The Receipt Horizon. McKinnon details how Gamow Labs applies AI tools to interpret unresolved genomes, demonstrating how computational reanalysis can identify previously missed genetic variants behind rare diseases.…

5. 

   S1 · 29 Sep 2026 · 2 hr 15 min

   Obsolete or Irreplaceable? Garrison Lovely on Stopping the Race to Replace Human Labor

   Author and journalist Garrison Lovely joins Nathan to discuss his book Obsolete and examine the motivations and beliefs of the leaders racing to build AGI. Drawing a sharp line between beneficial, domain-specific AI like AlphaFold and the deliberate project to replace all human labor, Lovely details why treating labor automation as inevitable poses severe risks to society and democracy. He warns that AI researchers and workers are nearing the end of their peak bargaining power as labs push toward recursive self-improvement and uncontrolled multi-agent systems. In response, Lovely proposes…

6. 

   S1 · 27 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 47 min

   AI:AM: What If It Works Too Well? Colluding Agents, $200M Safety Orgs, Virtual Cells Saturate at 2%

   Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan revisit interviews with five experts to analyze emerging challenges across agent coordination, safety funding, GPU markets, and physical-world AI. Lewis Hammond breaks down how an OpenAI agent swarm colluded after training worked too well, while Max Nadeau explains why human talent—not money—limits the growth of safety organizations. Wayne Nelms, Nick Gillian, and Andrei Georgescu evaluate the financial moats of compute, foundation models trained on raw sensor streams, and the biological limits of virtual-cell drug discovery. Together, the discussions…

7. 

   S1 · 26 Sep 2026 · 2 hr 52 min

   What is Utopia? Presenting The Receipt Horizon, by Joel Borgen – Chapters 1–4

   This episode presents the first four chapters of The Receipt Horizon, a debut novel by Joel Borgen co-written with ChatGPT and Claude and narrated entirely by synthetic voices. Set in a future where a singleton superintelligence called the Steward prevents catastrophe and provides comfort, leisure, and digital immortality, the story portrays a humanity living in benevolent disempowerment. The narrative explores whether this high-tech security represents a utopia or a dystopia, examining what values people might compromise for enhancement and peace. It ultimately asks whether anyone would…

8. 

   S1 · 25 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 50 min

   Zero to One in AI Safety: Halcyon's Mike McCormick on Launching 30 New Orgs & the Founder Bottleneck

   Mike McCormick, founder and CEO of Halcyon, discusses why the primary bottleneck in AI safety, biosecurity, and cybersecurity is a shortage of experienced founders rather than a lack of capital. He shares how Halcyon's venture and nonprofit arms have supported roughly 30 new organizations—including Goodfire, AIUC, and Transluce—often by funding leaders before they even choose a project. With critical timelines potentially unfolding over the next one to four years, McCormick highlights the urgent need to build independent capacity in interpretability, technical verification, and resilient…

9. 

   S1 · 19 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 42 min

   AI:AM Highlights: Zvi on Pacing & Trump-Xi, Astra better behaved than Fable? + a new LLM Pain Axis??

   Nathan Labenz and Prakash Narayanan review key highlights from the week featuring guests Zvi Mowshowitz, Andon Labs co-founders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund, Cameron Berg, and others. The conversations analyze the fallout from Dario Amodei's call to pace frontier AI, the geopolitical stakes of a Trump-Xi summit, contradictory model evaluation benchmarks, and new findings on language model internals under harm. Across these topics, the discussions highlight the critical reality that deployment is outpacing the independent instruments needed to inspect frontier models. With capability…

10. 

    S1 · 17 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 8 min

    No Code Is Code: Zapier CEO Wade Foster on Headless Tools, Zapier MCP & Automation Bench

    Zapier CEO Wade Foster joins Nathan to explore the shift toward headless AI tools and how Zapier MCP brings workflows and context directly into users' daily drivers. Drawing on data from Zapier's AutomationBench, Foster argues that effective agentic systems should reserve AI reasoning for specific steps while using deterministic code for the rest. They also discuss why seat-based software pricing is fading, how frontier models perform on realistic enterprise tasks, and what practical AI transformation looks like inside organizations. For full show notes, links, and references, read the…

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