
The Cognitive Revolution
Erik Torenberg and Nathan Labenz
Deep dives into AI research and development with experts from companies like DeepMind and Criteo.
Why we picked this
We picked The Cognitive Revolution for listeners who want to track artificial intelligence beyond the daily news cycle. The show features rigorous interviews with researchers, founders, and policy experts who build the systems shaping the future. Instead of surface-level tech hype, the host presses guests on technical realities, alignment bottlenecks, and governance failures. It is an unvarnished look at the frontier of computer science that rewards anyone trying to understand the actual mechanics of change.
Recent episodes

AI:AM Highlights: Welcome to the AGI Era
Sep 5, 20262h 20m

Write, Change, Recall, Forget: MongoDB's Pete Johnson on How Retrieval Drives Agent Performance
Sep 1, 20261h 36m

AI:AM Highlights: Recursive Self-Improvement, Rushed and Vibe-Coded?
Aug 28, 20262h 11m

RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo
Aug 26, 20262h 14m

AI in the AM — Weekly Highlights: Relaunch Week (Aug 17–20, 2026)
Aug 22, 20262h 33m

Let There Be Germicidal Light: This $500 Fixture Could Stop the Next Pandemic, from Complex Systems
Aug 16, 20261h 25m

Lindy Teammate: Flo Crivello on Multiplayer Agents, Memory & Why He'd Ban the Chinese Models He Uses
Aug 10, 20262h 6m

Thinking in Silico: Goodfire CTO Dan Balsam on Concept Manifolds & a $1000/Month ML Research Agent
Aug 8, 20261h 57m

Pick Your Poison: Zvi Mowshowitz on the Unipolar/Multipolar AGI Dilemma, OpenFace & Pacing the ...
Aug 5, 20262h 57m

Nathan Goes to China – Part 2: AI Safety with Chinese Characteristics
Aug 2, 20262h 17m

Is Offense or Defense Dominant? FAR.AI's Adam Gleave on the AI Security Leaderboard
Jul 30, 20261h 44m

Nathan Goes to China – Part 1: Tech & Agent Setup, Chinese AI UX, WAIC, and Attitudes on AI
Jul 27, 20262h 24m
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