Sep 24, 2026 · 35 min
AI’s risks outpace the institutions meant to govern them
The Wild West of A.I. Needs to End. Here’s How.
The episode examines whether democratic governments can build credible oversight before increasingly capable AI systems deepen social, legal, and strategic risks.
- 1Warnings from AI developers point to risks that extend beyond disruption into weapons, control, and potentially existential harm.
- 2A broad regulatory framework could establish public oversight, transparency, liability, and an agency responsible for supervising AI.
- 3Political agreement on regulation may exist, but institutional delays, corporate power, and competition with China complicate action.
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Appelbaum rejects the idea that corporate power or private “constitutions” can substitute for democratic self-government and public institutions.
The brief
David Wallace-Wells opens with warnings about rogue agents, hallucinations, and military risks, then asks why alarm from AI developers is finally pushing regulation toward the political mainstream.
Binyamin Appelbaum argues that existential risk deserves separate attention from ordinary disruption: increasingly capable systems could lower the barrier to dangerous weapons or escape meaningful human control.
Their proposed answer is broad government oversight, including an agency or commission, rather than narrow rules aimed at one hypothetical failure. Transparency, liability, and enforceable law matter too.
The sharpest political clash comes when Silicon Valley’s claims about AI’s threat to liberalism meet Appelbaum’s defense of democratic self-government and public institutions over corporate constitutions.
The conversation ends on a difficult balance: slowing development may protect society, but moving quickly is valuable only when systems are headed in a responsible direction.