ChinaTalk

Saif Khan makes his ChinaTalk debut. He is perhaps my favorite example of posting-to-policy that I’ve seen over the course of my time following Washington. Saif wrote some truly excellent deep dives into AI and semiconductors during his time at CSET, then went into the NSC and Commerce in the early-to-mid 2020s, across both the Biden and Trump II administrations, to help manifest the export control regulatory regime we have today. He is now out of government and launching the Center for Technology and Statecraft, an IFP-affiliated think tank, which is already producing excellent, grounded, technical, forward-looking work that will certainly shape many an AI policy discussion in the years to come.

We discuss:

Why Saif started a new think tank, and the value of deep, forward-looking policy research in an AI world moving at breakneck speed;

CTS’s landmark DUV report, which projects that stopping tool exports today could leave China producing roughly 100x fewer AI chips than the US by the mid-2030s, making DUV controls the US’s most consequential lever over the AI balance;

How rigorous research actually translates into government policy, and why think tank experience is valuable before working in government;

Robotics as the next frontier of US-China AI competition, and the security vs. diffusion mindsets shaping AI policy;

How AI is changing policy research itself, the challenge of bringing AI into government, and what AI-driven economic and social change could mean for humans.

Plus, why everyone should read Lu Xun, why AI might socialize like insects, and AI-nannying.
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I join Matt and Jerusalem for an unhinged conversation (most entertaining of the year?) about China, AI, corruption, politics, and various other things.

Check out their show The Argument, it's good.
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Kevin Roose, formerly of the New York Times and Hard Fork, joins ChinaTalk to discuss AGI Chronicles, his new history of OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, and the people who believed in AGI long before it was cool and could make you trillions. Kevin is launching his own show, Machine Gods, later this October.

We discuss…

Why AGI was built on belief, not just money, GPUs, or talent, and how Google had every piece of the puzzle except the conviction.

What drives Sam, Dario, and Demis, some of the most competitive people alive.

Whether the Manhattan Project analogy holds, and why the government can’t just take the AI over from the scientists who built it.

Why Dario is the most hawkish lab leader on China, and what may have changed during his time at Baidu.

How Washington became the second most AI-pilled city in America, and why politicians fear the machine god for their own power.

Whether people actually hate AI, and what recursive self-improvement in 2027 could mean for everyone else.

Plus: Noam Shazeer’s “divine benevolence,” why Dario can’t lie to save his life, and Lenin singing the outtro music
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Everyone wants AI that wins wars. Very few people want to collect, label, store, and test the data it runs on.

Bharat Patel is currently Accenture’s AI and data lead for its defense portfolio, a former enlisted Navy sailor, and a veteran of the Army acquisition world, with experience at MITRE and across the Department of Defense. We’re here today to talk about why data is the hard part in making AI work to win wars for you — and what standards, integration processes, and governance you need to turn fun tech and cute little language models into things that can actually serve the warfighter.

We’re also going to talk about the dark side of data — how poisoning can happen, the enemy’s vote in the datasets you build to find things on the battlefield, and what it’s like to be a civil servant trying to make big programs happen inside the acquisition bureaucracy.

Our conversation covers:

Why data is the real bottleneck for military AI, why “AI-ready data” is a myth, and why autonomous tanks are further off than you might think,

Ukraine’s autonomous systems as a case study: how years of collecting, labeling, and learning from battlefield data created the foundation for autonomy,

The boring side of AI: how pipelines, standards, governance, and testing and evaluation determine whether models ever make it into the field,

The adversary’s AI toolbox — including camouflage, deception, electronic warfare, and poisoned data — and how to test against those threats.

The 4D chess game of building programs inside the Pentagon: navigating requirements, funding, acquisition rules, and the people who make or break a program.

Thank you to Accenture Federal Services for bringing us this episode.
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It's a new fiscal year with no new budget, and the Pentagon has a fresh batch of proposals. Two stand out: a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command, built to buy and field autonomous weapons fast, and Project Meridian, a future-of-warfare panel made up of Elon, Palmer, Newt, and Emil Michael.

Is either the right way to transform the force?

Arthur Tellis, Senior Technology Fellow at the Institute for Progress, joins WarTalk regulars Jordan Schneider, Justin McIntosh, Bryan Clark, and Tony Stark.

We discuss…

The case against Auto WarCom: Justin's argument that centralizing autonomous weapons would slow down the experiments already running in theaters around the world

Bryan's steelman: a functional command like CYBERCOM or STRATCOM

Who should command the drones?

Terrible branding: Tony on why killer drones have so far escaped the culture war

What happens if Democrats take the House

Why combatant commands make poor engines of transformation

Project Meridian: what the board can do that ONA, CAPE, the Defense Science Board, and the FFRDCs can't; why Caesar's wife has to be above suspicion; Elon's belief that stealth is dead; and who the panel should have included instead

Every base is a target: Operation Spider Web, Europe's low-intensity war with Russia, and why bringing forces home doesn't make them safer

Plus: Newt Gingrich's vital signs, the Pope's AI encyclical, Ben Rich and the Nighthawk, Ghost Fleet, the salmon of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and where everyone would put America's next great military base.
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