Scaling Laws

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare, spoke with Miles Brundage, founding executive director of the AI Verification and Evaluation Research Institute (AVERI) and former senior advisor for AGI readiness at OpenAI, about the state of AI safety and accountability and AVERI's vision for independent third-party auditing of frontier AI companies.

The conversation covered the weaknesses of current AI regulations, including California's SB 53 and New York's RAISE Act; why Brundage left OpenAI to build an independent nonprofit; AVERI's case for shifting the unit of analysis from individual AI models to the organizations that build them; the "Volkswagen problem" of deception-proofing safety evaluations; a framework of AI Assurance Levels ranging from baseline transparency to treaty-grade verification; the limitations of safety benchmarks and the BenchRisk project's findings; market-based mechanisms for driving audit adoption, including insurance, procurement, and investor pressure; and how AVERI navigates the tension between proximity to industry and independence from it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Frontier AI Auditing: Toward Rigorous Third-Party Assessment of Safety and Security Practices at Leading AI Companies, Averi 2026
Risk Management for Mitigating Benchmark Failure Modes: BenchRisk, NeurIPS 2025
Why I'm Leaving OpenAI and What I'm Doing Next, Miles Brundage, Substack, October 2024
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Fabien Curto Millet, Chief Economist at Google, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, to discuss the potential of AI to catalyze a productivity boom while also addressing labor market instability. The three dive into likely changes in AI capabilities as well as ongoing reasons for slow organizational adoption of AI. Finally, they close with a brief discussion of potential policy approaches. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicholas Bagley, Professor of Law at Michigan Law, 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 live recording of the podcast in Ann Arbor. Thanks to Graham Hardig and Brinson Elliott for organizing a great event. Professors Bagley and Frazier start by analyzing a recent debate over housing policy before diving into the weeds of the Abundance Agenda, its nexus with AI policy, and what this all means for the future of legal education and governance.

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Representative Nick Begich, Alaska's at-large member of Congress, joins Kevin Frazier, Director the the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, to discuss the current state of AI policy on the Hill. As one of the few members of Congress with a background in tech, Rep. Begich offers a unique perspective on this unique and evolving regulatory question. The two also assess how Alaska may be a leader in developing AI infrastructure. Finally, Rep. Begich shares how he and his staff leverage AI to improve their own operations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kendall Cotton, Founder and CEO of Montana’s Frontier Institute, 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 Montana’s groundbreaking Right to Compute Act and how Montana hopes to protect access to AI and related technologies. We will discuss the history and reach of this Act and why other states may want to follow Montana's lead.

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