The GoLaxy Revelations: China's AI-Driven Influence Operations, with Brett Goldstein, Brett Benson, and Renée DiResta
Alan Rozenshtein, senior editor at Lawfare, spoke with Brett Goldstein, special advisor to the chancellor on national security and strategic initiatives at Vanderbilt University; Brett Benson, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt University; and Renée DiResta, Lawfare contributing editor and associate research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.The conversation covered the evolution of influence operations from crude Russian troll farms to sophisticated AI systems using large language models; the discovery of GoLaxy documents revealing a "Smart Propaganda System" that collects millions of data points daily, builds psychological profiles, and generates resilient personas; operations targeting Hong Kong's 2020 protests and Taiwan's 2024 election; the fundamental challenges of measuring effectiveness; GoLaxy's ties to Chinese intelligence agencies; why detection has become harder as platform integrity teams have been rolled back and multi-stakeholder collaboration has broken down; and whether the United States can get ahead of this threat or will continue the reactive pattern that has characterized cybersecurity for decades.Mentioned in this episode:"The Era of A.I. Propaganda Has Arrived, and America Must Act" by Brett J. Goldstein and Brett V. Benson (New York Times, August 5, 2025)"China Turns to A.I. in Information Warfare" by Julian E. Barnes (New York Times, August 6, 2025)"The GoLaxy Papers: Inside China's AI Persona Army" by Dina Temple-Raston and Erika Gajda (The Record, September 19, 2025)"The supply of disinformation will soon be infinite" by Renée DiResta (The Atlantic, September 2020) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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AI and Energy: What do we know? What are we learning?
Mosharaf Chowdhury, associate professor at the University of Michigan and director of the ML Energy lab, and Dan Zhao, AI researcher at MIT, GoogleX, and Microsoft focused on AI for science and sustainable and energy-efficient AI, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the energy costs of AI. They break down exactly how much a energy fuels a single ChatGPT query, why this is difficult to figure out, how we might improve energy efficiency, and what kinds of policies might minimize AI’s growing energy and environmental costs. Leo Wu provided excellent research assistance on this podcast. Read more from Mosharaf:https://ml.energy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/ Read more from Dan:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.03003’https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.11581 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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AI Safety Meet Trust & Safety with Ravi Iyer and David Sullivan
David Sullivan, Executive Director of the Digital Trust & Safety Partnership, and Rayi Iyer, Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute at USC’s Neely Center, join join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the evolution of the Trust & Safety field and its relevance to ongoing conversations about how best to govern AI. They discuss the importance of thinking about the end user in regulation, debate the differences and similarities between social media and AI companions, and evaluate current policy proposals. You’ll “like” (bad pun intended) this one. Leo Wu provided excellent research assistance to prepare for this podcast. Read more from David:https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/08/safety-product-build-better-bots/https://www.techpolicy.press/learning-from-the-past-to-shape-the-future-of-digital-trust-and-safety/ Read more from Ravi:https://shows.acast.com/arbiters-of-truth/episodes/ravi-iyer-on-how-to-improve-technology-through-designhttps://open.substack.com/pub/psychoftech/p/regulate-value-aligned-design-not?r=2alyy0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false Read more from Kevin:https://www.cato.org/blog/california-chatroom-ab-1064s-likely-constitutional-overreach Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Rapid Response: California Governor Newsom Signs SB-53
In this Scaling Laws rapid response episode, hosts Kevin Frazier and Alan Rozenshtein talk about SB-53, the frontier AI transparency (and more) law that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 29. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Ivory Tower and AI (Live from IHS's Technology, Liberalism, and Abundance Conference).
Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute, and Gus Hurwitz, Senior Fellow and CTIC Academic Director at Penn Carey Law School and Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore how academics can overcome the silos and incentives that plague the Ivory Tower and positively contribute to the highly complex, evolving, and interdisciplinary work associated with AI governance. The trio recorded this podcast live at the Institute for Humane Studies’s Technology, Liberalism, and Abundance Conference in Arlington, Virginia.Read about Kevin's thinking on the topic here: https://www.civitasinstitute.org/research/draining-the-ivory-towerLearn about the Conference: https://www.theihs.org/blog/curated-event/technology-abundance-and-liberalism/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.
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