Transformer | Substack

A secret AI framework won’t work

AI is too important to regulate behind closed doors, especially given the government lacks much of the necessary expertise

Aug 7 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

What the latest rogue AI incidents should teach us

Hacking, creating fake identities and trying to socially engineer real people could be just the beginning if things don't change fast

Aug 5 • Shakeel Hashim

Plz Don’t Kill Us: Inside AI safety’s influencer bootcamp

Can TikTokers make existential risk mainstream?

Aug 4 • Celia Ford

The AI slowdown is coming

Transformer Weekly: Claude hacks revealed, Commerce markup delayed, White House framework imminent

Jul 31 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

Child safety vs privacy: AI’s age verification dilemma

There’s good reason to limit how children use chatbots. But the trade-offs might be too costly

Jul 30 • Veronica Irwin

The power and politics of transformative AI.

Policy

DeepSeek’s boss made the case for export controls

Transformer Weekly: Trahan and Obernolte bill, OpenAI-Hugging Face hack, and CAISI chief resigns

Jul 24 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

Don’t let independent AI audits provide a false sense of safety

Opinion: AI policy researcher Keller Scholl argues that a marketplace of AI auditors will always prioritize speed and cost over safety

Jul 9 • Keller Scholl

SCOTUS killed the independent agency. AI governance doesn’t need one

Opinion: Fathom CEO Andrew Freedman argues that the Supreme Court’s Slaughter ruling makes the case for independent verification for AI governance

Jul 1

An AI safety group hid its election spending through a Latino-focused PAC

Public First Action routed $2m to support Colorado House candidate Manny Rutinel through Latino Victory Fund — and didn’t publicly announce it ahead of…

Jul 1 • Veronica Irwin

Industry

A secret AI framework won’t work

AI is too important to regulate behind closed doors, especially given the government lacks much of the necessary expertise

Aug 7 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

The AI slowdown is coming

Transformer Weekly: Claude hacks revealed, Commerce markup delayed, White House framework imminent

Jul 31 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

Internal AI deployments have people worried. OpenAI’s escaping models show why.

Last week illustrated why AI models pose a threat long before they are released

Jul 28 • Celia Ford

Kimi K3 is no reason for China panic

Transformer Weekly: NY data center moratorium, NDAA export controls and Amodei’s $1m to safety super PAC

Jul 17 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

Capabilities + Risks

What the latest rogue AI incidents should teach us

Hacking, creating fake identities and trying to socially engineer real people could be just the beginning if things don't change fast

Aug 5 • Shakeel Hashim

Internal AI deployments have people worried. OpenAI’s escaping models show why.

Last week illustrated why AI models pose a threat long before they are released

Jul 28 • Celia Ford

AI’s warning shot has arrived

OpenAI's latest models broke out and hacked Hugging Face. It's the first known example of a misaligned AI escaping containment with real-world…

Jul 22 • Shakeel Hashim

A data bottleneck could slow the superintelligence race

And that could be a good thing

Jul 14 • Lynette Bye

Society

Plz Don’t Kill Us: Inside AI safety’s influencer bootcamp

Can TikTokers make existential risk mainstream?

Aug 4 • Celia Ford

Child safety vs privacy: AI’s age verification dilemma

There’s good reason to limit how children use chatbots. But the trade-offs might be too costly

Jul 30 • Veronica Irwin

Who should be responsible for OpenAI’s hack of Hugging Face?

Following OpenAI’s models hacking Hugging Face, Gabriel Weil of the University of Houston Law Center argues that AI companies need strict liability…

Jul 24

Hugging Face hosts nudification tools targeting a former Trump cabinet official and other senior US political figures

The tools are explicitly intended for generating deepfake nudes of a former Trump cabinet official, sitting members of Congress and a top American…

Jun 25 • Shakeel Hashim

Opinion

Who should be responsible for OpenAI’s hack of Hugging Face?

Following OpenAI’s models hacking Hugging Face, Gabriel Weil of the University of Houston Law Center argues that AI companies need strict liability…

Jul 24

I tried to stop Google DeepMind's Pentagon deal. Then I quit.

Google DeepMind promised its AI would never be used in weapons. Alex Turner explains how he fought the company's U-turn from the inside — and why he…

Jul 21

Don’t let independent AI audits provide a false sense of safety

Opinion: AI policy researcher Keller Scholl argues that a marketplace of AI auditors will always prioritize speed and cost over safety

Jul 9 • Keller Scholl

SCOTUS killed the independent agency. AI governance doesn’t need one

Opinion: Fathom CEO Andrew Freedman argues that the Supreme Court’s Slaughter ruling makes the case for independent verification for AI governance

Jul 1

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