The Into AI Safety podcast aims to make it easier for everyone, regardless of background, to get meaningfully involved with the conversations surrounding the rules and regulations which should govern the research, development, deployment, and use of the technologies encompassed by the term "artificial intelligence" or "AI"
For better formatted show notes, additional resources, and more, go to https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/
Holding the Human Line w/ Allan Brooks and Etienne Brisson
Etienne Brisson and Allan Brooks, founder and program director of The Human Line Project, sat down with me to talk about AI-induced psychological harm, starting with their own experiences. Allan spent a month spiraling with ChatGPT, ending with him warning national security agencies about an encryption break that never happened. Etienne's uncle became convinced his chatbot was sentient and was hospitalized still messaging it from the back of a police car.
From there we get into why the community rejects "AI psychosis," what's driving these spirals, and whether anthropomorphic language is doing more damage than we admit. We also get into Allan's litigation against OpenAI, why Etienne thinks consequences are the only substitute for missing incentives, and whether these concerns are just a new moral panic. If you're interested in listening in greater detail, check out the extended version on the Kairos.fm Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Kairosfm/posts/holding-human-w-170848124/).
The Human Line Project runs a free peer support community. If you're struggling, findahelpline.com (https://findahelpline.com) will route you to support wherever you are.
NOTE: Jacob volunteers some of his time with The Human Line Project.
Chapters
(00:00) - Intro
(04:26) - Allan's Story
(30:20) - Etienne's Story
(40:32) - We Don't Like "AI Psychosis"
(47:58) - Why Is This Happening?
(59:58) - Anthropomorphization of AI
(01:13:21) - Narratives & Accountability?
(01:32:47) - Liability and Regulatory Capture
(01:35:56) - Outro
Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm (https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/e034).
The Human Line Project website (https://thehumanlineproject.org/)
The Human Line community (https://thehumanlinecommunity.org/)
The Logic article (https://thelogic.co/news/the-big-read/human-line-project-chatgpt-chatbots-psychosis/) - Meet the Quebecer Leading the Human Resistance Against AI
NY Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-delusions-chatgpt.html) - Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here's How It Happens.
Clear-Eyed AI blogpost (https://www.clear-eyed.ai/p/practical-tips-for-reducing-chatbot) - Practical Tips for Reducing Chatbot Psychosis
Georgetown Institute for Technology Law & Policy brief (https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/research-insights/insights/tech-brief-ai-sycophancy-openai-2/) - AI Sycophancy & OpenAI
FAccT '26 paper (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3805689.3806443) - Characterizing Delusional Spirals through Human-LLM Chat Logs
Nature op-ed (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01153-z) - Friendlier LLMs Tell Users What They Want to Hear — Even When It Is Wrong
MMLC Group blogpost (https://mmlcgroup.com/china-ai-personals/) - China Releases Rules for AI "Human-Like" Emotional Interaction Services
Into AI Safety podcast episode (https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/e028/) w/ Jacy Reese-Anthis (includes a section on ELIZA (https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/e028/#the-eliza-effect))
17 Aug 2026
Mapping Civilization's Resilience Gaps w/ Dr. Evan Miyazono
Dr. Evan Miyazono joins Jacob to talk about his path from quantum networking and Protocol Labs to founding Atlas Computing. They discuss why Atlas moved away from formal methods research and toward what Evan calls “field strategy”: identifying important problems, figuring out what interventions could actually address them, and finding the people best positioned to make them happen. The conversation also covers the resilience gap map, coordination failures, AI safety, "value alignment," and the question of how to decide what work is worth doing when there’s no obvious organization responsible for it.
Check out the video version (https://youtu.be/rsjVgoHFZM4) of this podcast on the Kairos.fm YouTube channel, or the extended version on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Kairosfm/posts/mapping-gaps-w-166878192)!
Chapters
(00:00) - Intro
(05:03) - From Quantum Internet to Blockchain
(13:29) - Founding Atlas Computing
(18:25) - Formal Methods Explained (ASIDE)
(24:39) - Narrower AI & Domain-Specific Safety
(35:54) - The Pivot to Field Strategy
(52:27) - Value Alignment vs. Skill
(01:09:16) - The Resilience Gap Map
(01:26:32) - Guarding Against Funder Capture
(01:49:09) - Rapid Fire Questions
(01:58:01) - Outro
Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm (https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/e033).
Atlas Computing website (https://atlascomputing.org/)
The AI Resilience Gap Map (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QAdfr71KOM0w5ZsU_8OxLG1q1mDUlJQJBK9UB0WTeT8/edit?usp=sharing)
Atlas Computing blogpost (https://blog.atlascomputing.org/p/civilizations-maintenance-backlog) - Civilization's Maintenance Backlog
Atlas Computing blogpost (https://blog.atlascomputing.org/p/if-your-problem-is-structural-you) - Your Solution Doesn't Know Your Problem Exists
Galois blogpost (https://www.galois.com/what-are-formal-methods) - What Are Formal Methods?
Patrick Collison & Tyler Cowen essay discussion (https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/07/we-need-a-new-science-of-progress.html) - We Need a New Science of Progress
Federation of American Scientists article (https://fas.org/publication/focused-research-organizations-a-new-model-for-scientific-research/) - Focused Research Organizations
9 Jul 2026
Pretraining Safety w/ Ethan Roland
What if the safest AI models weren't built by adding guardrails after training, but by shaping what gets learned in the first place? Ethan Roland, senior alignment researcher at AE Studio and first author on an ICML 2026 spotlight paper, joins Jacob to talk about gradient routing, a technique that routes dangerous capabilities into isolated parts of a model's architecture where they can be locked or removed entirely. They get into the absorption effect, KYC-style access control frameworks, and what it would actually take for frontier labs to adopt this kind of work before it's needed rather than after.
Chapters
(00:00) - Introduction
(06:39) - Inside AE Studio
(15:26) - China & the Alignment vs. Controllability Framing
(18:23) - Data Filtering & Gradient Routing (Aside)
(30:39) - Mixture of Experts Explained (Aside)
(36:25) - Why Pre-Training Interventions Are Rare
(42:43) - Ethan's Theory of Change
(56:17) - Access Control Governance and KYC (Aside)
(01:04:47) - The Researcher's Role in Policy Advocacy
(01:11:38) - Speed Round
(01:27:55) - Outro
Links
Below are the most important links for this episode. For more, visit the episode page on Kairos.fm (https://kairos.fm/intoaisafety/e032/).
Ethan's website (http://ethan-roland.com/)
The paper landing page (https://modularpretraining.com/)
Preprint (https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.04332) - Gradient Routing: Masking Gradients to Localize Computation in Neural Networks
ICLR paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06601) and webpage (https://deepignorance.ai) - Deep Ignorance: Filtering Pretraining Data Builds Tamper-Resistant Safeguards into Open-Weight LLMs
Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBRN_defense) - CBRN defense
NTI tutorials (https://www.nti.org/news/new-nti-tutorials-edcuate-biological-weapons-and-nuclear-testing/) on bioweapons and nuclear testing
Who has been a guest on Into AI Safety
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Li-Lian Ang
Andres Sepulveda Morales
Will Petillo
Tristan Williams
Felix de Simone
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
12 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
86
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
Contact Into AI Safety
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
