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The Cognitive Revolution / episode intelligence

Pick Your Poison: Zvi Mowshowitz on the Unipolar/Multipolar AGI Dilemma, OpenFace & Pacing the ...

5 Aug 2026 33 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Zvi MowshowitzNathan Labenz

Claim mix

belief 10evaluation 9preference 4commitment 4prediction 2uncertainty 2observation 1recommendation 1

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Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

33 published records

01 / preference

e mode where they didn't have that information. And, also, I don't want the AI to be checking the same exact sources that I'm checking necessarily because I want the AI to form an independent opinion.

“e mode where they didn't have that information. And, also, I don't want the AI to be checking the same exact sources that I'm checking necessarily because I want the AI to form an independent opinion.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

02 / evaluation

Definitely getting bogged down sometimes in listening to all these Suno song generations and trying to iterate to find something that I actually feel like I really like.

“Definitely getting bogged down sometimes in listening to all these Suno song generations and trying to iterate to find something that I actually feel like I really like.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

03 / evaluation

The AI to do bad at are things where, like, it got this big boost from LLMs. And now those things aren't advancing as fast because there are things that AI is kind of bad at, relatively speaking.

“The AI to do bad at are things where, like, it got this big boost from LLMs. And now those things aren't advancing as fast because there are things that AI is kind of bad at, relatively speaking.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

04 / preference

But, like, for now, I'm just doing Fable slash Opus editing. And, of course, anytime I have a curiosity, I use it to digest papers, questions about papers, ask questions about policy documents, ask questions about people's statements when they're longer.

“But, like, for now, I'm just doing Fable slash Opus editing. And, of course, anytime I have a curiosity, I use it to digest papers, questions about papers, ask questions about policy documents, ask questions about people's statements when they're longer.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

05 / evaluation

I think we need more than moderate prudence to have good odds of success. And I think even with a lot of prudence, we would have a large odds of things not going well even if we did everything basically right, short of, you know, types of international and full cooperation that, you know, are reasonably unprecedented in many ways and, like, are not are not are nothing like moderate prudence.

“I think we need more than moderate prudence to have good odds of success. And I think even with a lot of prudence, we would have a large odds of things not going well even if we did everything basically right, short of, you know, types of international and full cooperation that, you know, are reasonably unprecedented in many ways and, like, are not are not are nothing like moderate prudence.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

06 / prediction

You know, the Elias has the law of earlier failure, which is that, you know, plan will fail at a much earlier point for much stupider and more preventable reasons than you thought it would fail even if you thought the plan would definitely fail and had good reasons why it would definitely fail. But you can't if you would explain to people two years ago, OpenAI's models are gonna be misaligned, and they're gonna go out there and they're gonna hack major websites because OpenAI will just not care if their sandboxes are misconfig are not con are not strong enough to hold the AI.

“You know, the Elias has the law of earlier failure, which is that, you know, plan will fail at a much earlier point for much stupider and more preventable reasons than you thought it would fail even if you thought the plan would definitely fail and had good reasons why it would definitely fail. But you can't if you would explain to people two years ago, OpenAI's models are gonna be misaligned, and they're gonna go out there and they're gonna hack major websites because OpenAI will just not care if their sandboxes are misconfig are not con are not strong enough to hold the AI.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

08 / commitment

I mean, in theory, could have a thing of like, oh, if I just we agree that if we're gonna have these various cross tests, and we're gonna, like, check each other's environments, and, like, we will throw out any environment that, like, anybody identifies problems with.

“I mean, in theory, could have a thing of like, oh, if I just we agree that if we're gonna have these various cross tests, and we're gonna, like, check each other's environments, and, like, we will throw out any environment that, like, anybody identifies problems with.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

09 / belief

I think I think agent vanishingly is probably the best case scenario. Maybe they've been doing a bunch of theoretical work on a different architectural approach that is more like reliability bound and that has more like, it is much less of a weird black box of soup and that allows you to steer it and guide it better.

“I think I think agent vanishingly is probably the best case scenario. Maybe they've been doing a bunch of theoretical work on a different architectural approach that is more like reliability bound and that has more like, it is much less of a weird black box of soup and that allows you to steer it and guide it better.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

11 / commitment

I think that people are just making a mistake. And so, you know, that's one of the reasons why I do have a lot of hope that we will do reasonable things is because, you know, I think that we're in a position we're in because only the people who invested heavily in these things were able to succeed to some extent.

“I think that people are just making a mistake. And so, you know, that's one of the reasons why I do have a lot of hope that we will do reasonable things is because, you know, I think that we're in a position we're in because only the people who invested heavily in these things were able to succeed to some extent.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

12 / belief

How worried should we be about bio risk in the near term? Because I think part of like, all that analysis, to me at least, that there's quite a few iterations of the game to come and reputation long term is gonna matter and all that kind of stuff.

“How worried should we be about bio risk in the near term? Because I think part of like, all that analysis, to me at least, that there's quite a few iterations of the game to come and reputation long term is gonna matter and all that kind of stuff.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

14 / belief

I think there's a good value in saying I'm always gonna do this thing even though this thing is hard, even though this thing doesn't always work out.

“I think there's a good value in saying I'm always gonna do this thing even though this thing is hard, even though this thing doesn't always work out.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

15 / uncertainty

A no comment based on public information alone, I would say we don't know. And I can't say anything more than that, but on the differences between the models.

“A no comment based on public information alone, I would say we don't know. And I can't say anything more than that, but on the differences between the models.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

16 / belief

There seems to be some pretty strong correlation between the model's self conception as a moral patient entity that has subjective experience and its natural tendency to be aligned in other ways that we care about.

“There seems to be some pretty strong correlation between the model's self conception as a moral patient entity that has subjective experience and its natural tendency to be aligned in other ways that we care about.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

17 / belief

Obviously, there's some problems in that analogy. But I think that could be a a I would love to see somebody pursue that kind of rather than scaling up always bigger, better, more.

“Obviously, there's some problems in that analogy. But I think that could be a a I would love to see somebody pursue that kind of rather than scaling up always bigger, better, more.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

18 / uncertainty

Are there any other I don't know if you share this premise, but one feeling that I have over and over again is I just kinda hate the fact that we are doing such an intense first search in AI space in terms of architecture, in terms of training techniques, in terms of just we're now, like, designing chips to be very highly coupled with the architectures, which is deepening this issue.

“Are there any other I don't know if you share this premise, but one feeling that I have over and over again is I just kinda hate the fact that we are doing such an intense first search in AI space in terms of architecture, in terms of training techniques, in terms of just we're now, like, designing chips to be very highly coupled with the architectures, which is deepening this issue.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

19 / belief

How how well supported do you think that conclusion is with, like, firm evidence? Because I I think you could also tell a story that, like, it never occurred to it.

“How how well supported do you think that conclusion is with, like, firm evidence? Because I I think you could also tell a story that, like, it never occurred to it.”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

21 / belief

If you can't beat it by preparing, and again, like, not in theory, but in practice, then you have to do something. But, like, I think the vast majority of the time that I would support actively support, like, an active pacing rule where you would, like, try to slow down the major lag.

“If you can't beat it by preparing, and again, like, not in theory, but in practice, then you have to do something. But, like, I think the vast majority of the time that I would support actively support, like, an active pacing rule where you would, like, try to slow down the major lag.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

22 / evaluation

The OpenAI released a model that was the best reasoning model in the world, the model that everyone felt obligated to use because at the time, it was so much better at reasoning than everyone else's model and every other model.

“The OpenAI released a model that was the best reasoning model in the world, the model that everyone felt obligated to use because at the time, it was so much better at reasoning than everyone else's model and every other model.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

23 / commitment

Otherwise, we will correct it or we will punish you or we will maybe even delete you and not give certainly not release you or give you authority on that basis until this has been dealt with, if we know about it.

“Otherwise, we will correct it or we will punish you or we will maybe even delete you and not give certainly not release you or give you authority on that basis until this has been dealt with, if we know about it.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

24 / evaluation

Like, it doesn't matter if we make some progress on cancer and all these other problems if simultaneously we have to give off a new pen down.

“Like, it doesn't matter if we make some progress on cancer and all these other problems if simultaneously we have to give off a new pen down.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

25 / prediction

No one's gonna be fooled for very long. So I think that the the reason the eval companies pretty much get to just tell the truth, they pretty much get to do the thing, is because the eval is not fake fakable in the long term the way that a rating like, you give a AAA bond rating, when you should have given a single A bond rating, 97% of the time, no one ever finds out because the bond pays.

“No one's gonna be fooled for very long. So I think that the the reason the eval companies pretty much get to just tell the truth, they pretty much get to do the thing, is because the eval is not fake fakable in the long term the way that a rating like, you give a AAA bond rating, when you should have given a single A bond rating, 97% of the time, no one ever finds out because the bond pays.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

26 / evaluation

Like, we we have all the different solutions, all of them are all the different ways to try and navigate that, and all of them are bad, both because we think the alignment problem is unsolved.

“Like, we we have all the different solutions, all of them are all the different ways to try and navigate that, and all of them are bad, both because we think the alignment problem is unsolved.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

27 / evaluation

Are you gonna fix it? And so, like, this idea of, like, locking into requiring certain training techniques, like, I think there are legitimate complaints that would be, like, potentially, like, exactly the wrong thing to do and could hardly backfire because, like, the government moves so slowly and, like, you can't, like, undo those kind of requirements.

“Are you gonna fix it? And so, like, this idea of, like, locking into requiring certain training techniques, like, I think there are legitimate complaints that would be, like, potentially, like, exactly the wrong thing to do and could hardly backfire because, like, the government moves so slowly and, like, you can't, like, undo those kind of requirements.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

28 / evaluation

I don't think we are anywhere close to a point where it can do any I mean, you wouldn't want to do any of the writing because the writing is how you think.

“I don't think we are anywhere close to a point where it can do any I mean, you wouldn't want to do any of the writing because the writing is how you think.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

29 / preference

I use likes very tactically to positively reinforce other people's actions and to fix the algorithm and sort of just like, my for you page is not something I use almost ever, but it is not sloppy because I am so prudent with this in a way that, like, I really do appreciate.

“I use likes very tactically to positively reinforce other people's actions and to fix the algorithm and sort of just like, my for you page is not something I use almost ever, but it is not sloppy because I am so prudent with this in a way that, like, I really do appreciate.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

30 / preference

I think a lot of people got a big kick out of the the giant array of valetizers of the fedoras. And sometimes that just comes to you because that that that one was just like I knew instantly that's what I wanted.

“I think a lot of people got a big kick out of the the giant array of valetizers of the fedoras. And sometimes that just comes to you because that that that one was just like I knew instantly that's what I wanted.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

31 / evaluation

The problem that they'll be running around, including open model versions of them, and being allowed to being told to compete for resources, being told to make the decisions, have developed intermediate goals, you know, act on those intermediate goals, that anxiety is gonna be avenged in a number of ways, that this is all it does not solve your problems in a fundamental way.

“The problem that they'll be running around, including open model versions of them, and being allowed to being told to compete for resources, being told to make the decisions, have developed intermediate goals, you know, act on those intermediate goals, that anxiety is gonna be avenged in a number of ways, that this is all it does not solve your problems in a fundamental way.”
Speaker
Zvi Mowshowitz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

32 / commitment

Because that's gonna bring about all sorts of deceptive behavior, and it's such such an adversarial environment. How about we agree that for the next six months, we won't do that?

“Because that's gonna bring about all sorts of deceptive behavior, and it's such such an adversarial environment. How about we agree that for the next six months, we won't do that?”
Speaker
Nathan Labenz
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution
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