Best B&M Productions Podcasts (2025)

1
“Interpretability Will Not Reliably Find Deceptive AI” by Neel Nanda 13:15

38m ago13:15

13:15

(Disclaimer: Post written in a personal capacity. These are personal hot takes and do not in any way represent my employer's views.) TL;DR: I do not think we will produce high reliability methods to evaluate or monitor the safety of superintelligent systems via current research paradigms, with interpretability or otherwise. Interpretability seems a…

1
“Slowdown After 2028: Compute, RLVR Uncertainty, MoE Data Wall” by Vladimir_Nesov 11:33

3h ago11:33

11:33

It'll take until ~2050 to repeat the level of scaling that pretraining compute is experiencing this decade, as increasing funding can't sustain the current pace beyond ~2029 if AI doesn't deliver a transformative commercial success by then. Natural text data will also run out around that time, and there are signs that current methods of reasoning t…

1
From Fox to Natasha Lyonne: Three Key AI Developments in Media 40:03

3h ago40:03

40:03

Fox Entertainment quietly approves Runway AI for public-facing deliverables, marking a significant industry shift. In this episode, hosts Addy Ghani and Joey Daoud dissect this major development and what it means for other studios. They explore the actual capabilities of AI in film and TV production today, examining real-world applications and the …

1
“Early Chinese Language Media Coverage of the AI 2027 Report: A Qualitative Analysis” by jeanne_, eeeee 27:35

1d ago27:35

27:35

In this blog post, we analyse how the recent AI 2027 forecast by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean has been discussed across Chinese language platforms. We present: Our research methodology and synthesis of key findings across media artefacts A proposal for how censorship patterns may provide signal for t…

1
Duolingo Goes AI-First, Runway's New References Feature, Model Context Protocol Explained 32:53

2d ago32:53

32:53

Duolingo's memo announcing an 'AI-first' approach signals a shift away from contractors. In this episode, Addy and Joey analyze what this means for creative professionals, alongside Runway's impressive Gen-4 updates with its new References feature. Plus, we explore how Anthropic's Model Context Protocol is enabling Claude to control professional so…

1
The Oscars Say AI is OK, Test-Time Training, and Descript Goes Vibe Editing 35:59

7d ago35:59

35:59

The Academy clarifies its stance on generative AI in filmmaking, along with a few other new rules. Then we break down a new AI paper with Test-Time Training and how it generated minute long Tom and Jerry shorts. Then we look at Descript's new 'vibe editing' tool that they teased and what it could mean for video editing.…

1
The High Files: Reflection Of The Soul 43:45

7d ago43:45

43:45

The FINALE of the High FILES. Hope you enjoyed! OUTRO SONG/INTRO SONG BY: / @thrifterrecords2997By B & M Productions

1
[Linkpost] “Jaan Tallinn’s 2024 Philanthropy Overview” by jaan 1:17

9d ago1:17

1:17

This is a link post. to follow up my philantropic pledge from 2020, i've updated my philanthropy page with the 2024 results. in 2024 my donations funded $51M worth of endpoint grants (plus $2.0M in admin overhead and philanthropic software development). this comfortably exceeded my 2024 commitment of $42M (20k times $2100.00 — the minimum price of …

1
“Impact, agency, and taste” by benkuhn 15:17

8d ago15:17

15:17

I’ve been thinking recently about what sets apart the people who’ve done the best work at Anthropic. You might think that the main thing that makes people really effective at research or engineering is technical ability, and among the general population that's true. Among people hired at Anthropic, though, we’ve restricted the range by screening fo…

1
[Linkpost] “To Understand History, Keep Former Population Distributions In Mind” by Arjun Panickssery 5:42

9d ago5:42

5:42

This is a link post. Guillaume Blanc has a piece in Works in Progress (I assume based on his paper) about how France's fertility declined earlier than in other European countries, and how its power waned as its relative population declined starting in the 18th century. In 1700, France had 20% of Europe's population (4% of the whole world population…

1
“AI-enabled coups: a small group could use AI to seize power” by Tom Davidson, Lukas Finnveden, rosehadshar 15:22

9d ago15:22

15:22

We’ve written a new report on the threat of AI-enabled coups. I think this is a very serious risk – comparable in importance to AI takeover but much more neglected. In fact, AI-enabled coups and AI takeover have pretty similar threat models. To see this, here's a very basic threat model for AI takeover: Humanity develops superhuman AI Superhuman AI…

1
“Accountability Sinks” by Martin Sustrik 28:50

11d ago28:50

28:50

Back in the 1990s, ground squirrels were briefly fashionable pets, but their popularity came to an abrupt end after an incident at Schiphol Airport on the outskirts of Amsterdam. In April 1999, a cargo of 440 of the rodents arrived on a KLM flight from Beijing, without the necessary import papers. Because of this, they could not be forwarded on to …

1
Netflix Says AI Will Make Films 10% Better. Meanwhile, New Study Reveals Bias Against AI Involvement 35:23

10d ago35:23

35:23

Netflix's Ted Sarandos reveals his strategy for AI in filmmaking, suggesting a focus on making movies "10% better" rather than just cheaper. Hosts Addy Ghani and Joey Daoud dig into what this means for production costs and Hollywood's future. Plus, surprising findings about audience perception of AI-generated stories, and the deal that gives Ryan C…

1
S12E4: Making Space with Jon M. Chu 44:06

10d ago44:06

44:06

Jon M. Chu is a director, producer and screenwriter. Along with both parts of the Wicked movie adaptation, he directed Crazy Rich Asians, Step Up 2 and In the Heights. In a special live episode of DB|BD, Jon joins Ellen McGirt onstage at the Great Place to Work For All Summit, which took place in Las Vegas on April 10th-12th, 2025. Jon details how …

1
David Abrahamovitch | Grind: How to build a DTC brand 37:30

10d ago37:30

37:30

Building a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand offers an incredible opportunity to connect with customers and foster long-term brand loyalty. But while the rewards can be significant, so too are the challenges and barriers to entry. That’s why I wanted to speak with someone who has successfully navigated this journey for our season focus on sales. From …

1
Why Brand Trust is the Currency of the Future with Brianna Doe, Founder of Verbatim 55:53

10d ago55:53

55:53

When it comes to trust, it can take years to build and seconds to break. While this might feel like common sense when it comes to consumer-brand relationships, it's possible to overlook how crucial trust is in the brand-creator relationship. With a passion for this topic backed by a deep understanding, Brianna Doe, founder of Verbatim, joins Dave t…

1
“Training AGI in Secret would be Unsafe and Unethical” by Daniel Kokotajlo 10:46

13d ago10:46

10:46

Subtitle: Bad for loss of control risks, bad for concentration of power risks I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for the last year. I wish I’d been able to release it sooner, but on the bright side, it’ll make a lot more sense to people who have already read AI 2027. There's a good chance that AGI will be trained before this decade is out. By AGI I…

1
“Why Should I Assume CCP AGI is Worse Than USG AGI?” by Tomás B. 1:15

13d ago1:15

1:15

Though, given my doomerism, I think the natsec framing of the AGI race is likely wrongheaded, let me accept the Dario/Leopold/Altman frame that AGI will be aligned to the national interest of a great power. These people seem to take as an axiom that a USG AGI will be better in some way than CCP AGI. Has anyone written justification for this assumpt…

1
RenderCon, Higgsfield AI, and Vimeo Streaming 36:32

14d ago36:32

36:32

Addy Ghani and Joey Daoud dive into RenderCon's standout moments, including OTOY's Star Trek Unification project that digitally recreates Nimoy and Shatner, analyze Higgfield's impressive new AI video generation capabilities with its 49 pre-built camera moves, and examine Vimeo's strategic pivot with their new streaming service that allows creators…

1
The High Files: Perception Of Your Place 47:21

14d ago47:21

47:21

Part 2 of 3 of the HIGH FILES. Now back to your programming!

1
“Surprising LLM reasoning failures make me think we still need qualitative breakthroughs for AGI” by Kaj_Sotala 35:51

15d ago35:51

35:51

Introduction Writing this post puts me in a weird epistemic position. I simultaneously believe that: The reasoning failures that I'll discuss are strong evidence that current LLM- or, more generally, transformer-based approaches won't get us AGI As soon as major AI labs read about the specific reasoning failures described here, they might fix them …

1
“Frontier AI Models Still Fail at Basic Physical Tasks: A Manufacturing Case Study” by Adam Karvonen 21:00

18d ago21:00

21:00

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently worried about a world where only 30% of jobs become automated, leading to class tensions between the automated and non-automated. Instead, he predicts that nearly all jobs will be automated simultaneously, putting everyone "in the same boat." However, based on my experience spanning AI research (including fi…

1
Is Sinners The Savior for Movie Theaters? 34:43

17d ago34:43

34:43

The theater experience is making a comeback as film formats return to prominence. In this episode, Joey and Addy dive into Ryan Coogler's innovative approach to shooting 'Sinners' on 70mm film, the surprising success of the Minecraft movie, and the uncertain future of LA's iconic Cinerama Dome. Plus, we analyze James Cameron's candid take on cuttin…

1
NAB 2025: Virtual Production, Gaussian Splats, Budget Friendly Gear and More! 25:24

20d ago25:24

25:24

Joey breaks down his week at NAB while Addy provides perspective from afar, covering the unexpected surge in VP innovations, practical AI implementations in post-production tools, and notable hardware releases that dominated the show floor.By VP Land

1
“Negative Results for SAEs On Downstream Tasks and Deprioritising SAE Research (GDM Mech Interp Team Progress Update #2)” by Neel Nanda, lewis smith, Senthooran Rajamanoharan, Arthur Conmy, Callum McDougall ... 57:32

23d ago57:32

57:32

Audio note: this article contains 31 uses of latex notation, so the narration may be difficult to follow. There's a link to the original text in the episode description. Lewis Smith*, Sen Rajamanoharan*, Arthur Conmy, Callum McDougall, Janos Kramar, Tom Lieberum, Rohin Shah, Neel Nanda * = equal contribution The following piece is a list of snippet…

1
[Linkpost] “Playing in the Creek” by Hastings 4:12

22d ago4:12

4:12

This is a link post. When I was a really small kid, one of my favorite activities was to try and dam up the creek in my backyard. I would carefully move rocks into high walls, pile up leaves, or try patching the holes with sand. The goal was just to see how high I could get the lake, knowing that if I plugged every hole, eventually the water would …

1
“Thoughts on AI 2027” by Max Harms 40:27

23d ago40:27

40:27

This is part of the MIRI Single Author Series. Pieces in this series represent the beliefs and opinions of their named authors, and do not claim to speak for all of MIRI. Okay, I'm annoyed at people covering AI 2027 burying the lede, so I'm going to try not to do that. The authors predict a strong chance that all humans will be (effectively) dead i…

1
“Short Timelines don’t Devalue Long Horizon Research” by Vladimir_Nesov 2:10

23d ago2:10

2:10

Short AI takeoff timelines seem to leave no time for some lines of alignment research to become impactful. But any research rebalances the mix of currently legible research directions that could be handed off to AI-assisted alignment researchers or early autonomous AI researchers whenever they show up. So even hopelessly incomplete research agendas…

1
“Alignment Faking Revisited: Improved Classifiers and Open Source Extensions” by John Hughes, abhayesian, Akbir Khan, Fabien Roger 41:04

24d ago41:04

41:04

In this post, we present a replication and extension of an alignment faking model organism: Replication: We replicate the alignment faking (AF) paper and release our code. Classifier Improvements: We significantly improve the precision and recall of the AF classifier. We release a dataset of ~100 human-labelled examples of AF for which our classifi…

1
From VistaVision to Virtual Production: Film's Unexpected Second Act 34:05

24d ago34:05

34:05

Film isn't dead — it's finding new life alongside cutting-edge technology. Join Addy and Joey as they explore why major productions like Fallout and Poor Things are combining film with virtual production, the psychological benefits that shooting on celluloid brings to directors, and the surprising technical advantages film offers over digital. Plus…

1
Laura Harnett | Seep: How to make sales sustainably 33:21

24d ago33:21

33:21

PWC reports that over 80% of consumers are willing to pay higher prices for sustainably produced goods so environmental responsibility is clearly a lucrative business as well as being the right thing to do. Laura Harnett is the Founder of Seep, the only B Corp-certified, plastic-free cleaning tool brand in Europe. Having raised a £50,000 Dragons’ D…

1
“METR: Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks” by Zach Stein-Perlman 11:09

26d ago11:09

11:09

Summary: We propose measuring AI performance in terms of the length of tasks AI agents can complete. We show that this metric has been consistently exponentially increasing over the past 6 years, with a doubling time of around 7 months. Extrapolating this trend predicts that, in under five years, we will see AI agents that can independently complet…

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B&M Productions Podcasts

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