Anthropic’s Risky IPO, Google’s Carbon Comeback, and Grok’s Odyssey | EP124

Anthropic is heading for the stock market with a structure designed to keep control in its founders’ hands. Both Frank and Justin ask why it needs an IPO at all. Frank worries that shareholder pressure will weaken its safety mission; Justin sees pressure to make better models faster as a good thing.

Plus: New models, scientific research, a wave of hacks and AI agents communicating across supposedly separate containers. Google’s Carbon comeback comes with an access problem, while Grok’s Odyssey leaves Frank unconvinced that Christopher Nolan has anything to worry about.

00:47 What were this week’s big AI model releases?
03:28 Is OpenAI making new scientific discoveries?
05:03 How bad is the latest wave of hacks?
06:24 Can we keep AI agents contained?
10:11 Can good AI agents keep bad ones in check?
11:25 Why is Anthropic going public now?
16:44 Can Anthropic insure against human extinction?
19:54 Can Anthropic protect safety after its IPO?
29:48 Is Google Carbon a comeback we can’t use?
35:13 Is Grok’s Odyssey making Nolan nervous?

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► LINKS TO CONTENT WE DISCUSSED

• Who controls powerful AI? Anthropic has a plan for long after its leaders depart
• Anthropic's IPO is risky business
• Anthropic’s IPO plans: 900% revenue retention, but $80 billion in first-half losses
• Gemini 4 Carbon: our next frontier model
• ‘Meaningless as a laptop screensaver’: reviewers slate Musk’s AI-made Odyssey film
• Genie 4: A new generation of world simulation
• GPT-6.1 Terra
• 📢 Kimi K3.1 Pro has launched! Start exploring now!
• We release the weights of Le Chonk, advancing the frontier of open models in agentic coding and cybersecurity.
• You learned to talk by listening. So did dessa.
• The Smartest Sovereign AI
• Ask Qwen, Know More
• An AI agent performed brain surgery on a mouse last night.
• Working with academic communities to build scientific understanding
• Current Response to Unauthorized Access to “Onamae.com Desktop Cloud” (Tenth Report)
• Moldova takes down 80+ public services after cyberattack
• Keystone to Destroy 18,835 Hardware Wallets After Hackers Steal Device Verification Key
• Meltdown and Spectre

► CONNECT WITH US
For more in-depth discussions, connect Justin and Frank on LinkedIn.
Justin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincollery/
Frank: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankprendergast/