Cheap Talk

Ben Harack joins Cheap Talk to talk about AI risk and governance; power shifts caused by AI; translating AI into a power advantage; technical means to verify limits on AI; the problem of dark compute; prospects for a political deal to cooperatively limit AI development; the US compute advantage over China; predictions for AI existential risk; and Marcus thought this would be all doom and gloom
Ben Harack is co-founder and Research Lead at the Oxford Hardware AI Governance Lab.
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
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Ukraine access to Starshield is at least temporarily restored; Austria expels suspected Russian spies; the rational calculus of declaring someone persona non grata; rationalists love espionage; and Marcus likes the show The Americans but thinks the Mission: Impossible movies have gone downhill

The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
We have new items in the online store! Check them out at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments.

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New items in the Cheap Talk shop, including a Mathpocalypse t-shirt and AI sticker packs; placing blame about Ukraine’s access to Starshield; whether polling is damaging to the public discourse; what the polls tell us about the midterm elections; how the polls could be wrong; the role of international relations in the upcoming elections; the limited leverage of Democrats on US foreign policy even if they win; and Marcus enjoys voting

The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
We have new items in the online store! Check them out at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments.

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A series of unfortunate events in the Russia/Ukraine conflict; the effect of domestic politics on US assistance to Ukraine; the ability of Europe to provide intelligence and battlefield internet access; mathpocalypse and implications for cryptography and cybersecurity; how AI is shifting the offense/defense balance in cryptography; and Marcus is scared to open his new book
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments!

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AI agents are like middle schoolers; assessing progress from the Trump/Xi summit; combatting the security dilemma with summitry; creating new communication channels for AI incidents; panda diplomacy and overplaying one’s panda hand; some small movements toward AI governance; why AI resorts to deception; and Marcus is a summit optimist
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments!
Further Reading:
Nicholas Wheeler and Marcus Holmes. 2026. “Trump and Xi face an AI security dilemma – but face‑to‑face diplomacy could be a start in mitigating it.” The Conversation, September 24.

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