Are we in charge of our AI tools or are they in charge of us?

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- Meet R Mini Arnold - my OpenClaw chief of staff, which manages the equivalent of a ten-person team from a Mac mini in my garden studio. While I slept, that AI team debugged its own code at 3am, researched a trending Substack essay using five parallel investigators, and wrote a 4,600-word script for this very episode in 40 minutes. The gap between people who've started building this way and those who haven't is widening every week.  I covered: 00:51 Introducing my OpenClaw agent “R Mini Arnold” 03:59 What my AI chief of staff actually does 07:58 The hardware and software stack 10:38 A morning brief before you wake up 12:05 Overnight agents: research and code 15:00 How I communicate with my agent 18:56 Example 1: the sovereign wealth fund 22:41 Example 2: how this video was written 26:34 What it costs 29:22 The soul.md personality spec 32:39 Am I losing the judgment muscle? 35:46 Individuals vs. Fortune 500s 38:25 What to try this week ----- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- This is the first episode of AI Vistas, a new series where I bring together people I trust and respect to tackle a major question collectively.  Today’s question: are we in charge of our AI tools, or are they in charge of us?  Joining me are Nita Farahany, distinguished professor of law and philosophy at Duke University and a leading thinker on cognitive liberty and mental privacy; Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and one of the world's most cited medical researchers; and Rohit Krishnan, engineer, former hedge fund manager, and AI builder. Moderating the conversation is Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic. We covered: (01:33) Introducing AI Vistas (03:51) The AI agent that made a financial decision mid-drive (05:48) What does it mean to act autonomously anymore? (08:42) Why AI harms are rarer than you'd expect (10:24) When AI outperforms doctors – and why that's complicated (15:20) Constituent competence: the skill you must never offload (18:50) De-skilling is already happening  (31:20) What can schools do better? (42:50) AI slop and "hollow-ware" (46:40) What is lost when AI does the creating? (49:18) When a tool gets good enough, we hand it off (50:11) Deliberate intent: keeping AI as a tool ----- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Where to find Nick, Nita, Eric and Rohit: Thinking Freely with Nita Farahany: https://nitafarahany.substack.com/ Ground Truths with Eric Topol: https://erictopol.substack.com/ Strange Loop Canon with Rohit Krishnan: https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/ The Most Interesting Reads with Nick Thompson: https://nxthompson.substack.com/ Production by EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- In this episode, I sit down with my friend Rohit Krishnan - writer of the Substack newsletter Strange Loop Canon - for a hands-on conversation about what it actually looks like to build with AI agents today. Between us we're burning through tens of billions of tokens a month - I hit nearly 100 million in a single day this week - and we share what we're each running on our own machines. We dig into the quirks and surprising power of tools like OpenClaw, Claude Code, and Cowork, debate why AI remains stubbornly bad at good writing, and zoom out to ask what a world of trillions of agents might actually look like — and what economic infrastructure it will need. We covered: (03:15) What's on your screen right now? (04:30) OpenClaw (06:27) Rohit’s agent, Morpheus (11:06) Azeem's agent, R. Mini Arnold (19:25) The analyst is now a machine (22:36) 100 million tokens in a day: the new normal (24:44) Building tools to improve AI writing: Horace and Broca (32:19) Why writing is the hardest eval for LLMs (39:18) Towards a trillion agents (42:09) The agentic economy: coordination, identity, and exchange (46:33) How to get started with OpenClaw (51:18) The hardest leap for new users ----- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----In this episode, I'm joined by Jaime Sevilla, founder of Epoch AI; Hannah Petrovic from my team at Exponential View; and financial journalist Matt Robinson from AI Street. Together we investigate a fundamental question: do the economics of AI companies actually work? We analysed OpenAI's financials from public data to examine whether their revenues can sustain the staggering R&D costs of frontier models. The findings reveal a picture far more precarious than many assume; we also explore where the real infrastructure bottlenecks lie, why compute demand will dwarf energy constraints, and what the rise of long-running agentic workloads means for the entire industry. Read the study here: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/inside-openais-unit-economics-epoch-exponentialviewWe covered: (00:00) Do the economics of frontier AI actually work? (02:48) Piecing together OpenAI's finances from public data (05:24) GPT-5's "rapidly depreciating asset" problem (13:25) Why OpenAI is flirting with ads (17:31) If you were Sam Altman, what would you do differently? (22:54) Energy vs. GPUs; where the real infrastructure bottleneck lies (29:15) What surging compute demand actually looks like (33:12) The most surprising finding from the research (38:02) The race to avoid commoditization (43:35) Agents that outlive their models  Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem  Where to find Jamie: https://epoch.ai or https://epochai.substack.com Where to find Matt: https://www.ai-street.co  Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/-----A week before OpenClaw exploded, I recorded a prescient conversation with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind. We talked about what happens when AI starts to seem conscious – even if it isn’t. Today, you get to hear our conversation.Mustafa has been sounding the alarm about what he calls “seemingly conscious AI” and the risk of collective AI psychosis for a long time. We discussed this idea of the “fourth class of being” – neither human, tool, nor nature – that AI is becoming and all it brings with it.Skip to the best bits:(03:38) Why consciousness means the ability to suffer(06:52) "Your empathy circuits are being hacked"(07:23) Consciousness as the basis of rights(10:47) A fourth class of being(13:41) Why market forces push toward seemingly conscious AI(20:56) What AI should never be allowed to say(25:06) The proliferation problem with open-source chatbots(29:09) Why we need well-paid civil servants(30:17) Where should we draw the line with AI?(37:48) The counterintuitive case for going faster(42:00) The vibe coding dopamine hit(47:09) Social intelligence as the next AI frontier(48:50) The case for humanist super intelligence-----Where to find Mustafa:- X (Twitter): https://x.com/mustafasuleyman- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mustafa-suleyman/- Personal Website: https://mustafa-suleyman.ai/Where to find me:- Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/- Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar- Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeemProduced by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Ltd. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/-----At Davos 2026, the mood was unlike any previous World Economic Forum gathering. With Donald Trump arriving amid escalating geopolitical tensions and European leaders sounding alarms about sovereignty, I recorded live dispatches from the ground. In this special episode, I bring together observations from four days at the annual meeting, tracking the seismic shifts in global order alongside the practical realities of AI adoption in the enterprise.Skip to the best bits:(00:38) Day one at Davos(02:10) Three recurring themes through the week(03:55) Day three at Davos(05:12) Mark Carney's stirring speech(05:52) Why European leaders are sounding the alarm(06:51) Why technological sovereignty just became urgent(09:31) Day four at Davos(12:59) What leaders really have to say on AI adoption(14:07) The case for only using open source modelsWhere to find me:Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeemProduction by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years.Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic.To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/------In this episode, Peter McCrory, Head of Economics at Anthropic, unpacks the company's new Economic Index report. His team analysed millions of real Claude conversations to map exactly where AI is augmenting human work today and where it isn't. We explore the striking divergence between API and chat usage, why businesses need to extract tacit knowledge to unlock AI's potential, the "hollow ladder" risk for junior workers, and Anthropic's estimate that AI could add 1.0-1.8% to annual productivity growth over the next decade.Skip to the best parts:(00:00) Anthropic's Economic Index report(01:20) Claude's two distinct usage patterns(06:22) Examining AI's impact on the labor market(09:20) Where most businesses think too small(12:03) Why extracting tacit knowledge is so important(20:33) How do we create the next generation of experts?(23:22) Why people need to develop cognitive endurance(29:55) Long-term vs. short-term productivity(35:56) The future of human knowledge(37:46) Could AI's greatest impact go unmeasured?(41:55) How task bottlenecks have moved(46:09) Implementation resembles a staircase - not a curve(50:47) "Capability doesn't instantly deliver adoption"------Where to find me:Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeemProduction by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ -------- In this episode, I share my outlook for 2026 and explain why AI tools now feel genuinely different. I explore how the act of making has been transformed, why authenticity and meaning will become the new scarcity, and whether the foundations of energy and capital can hold. I also address the question I was asked most in 2025: when will the AI bubble burst? Skip to the best bits: 00:00 Why AI feels different in 2026 01:59 The six shifts in AI 03:32 The "done list" era 06:43 From execution to orchestration 09:02 The agentic coding revolution 11:10 What's a Chief Question Officer? 13:58 Three ways value will be created 16:27 "Claude told me to use ChatGPT" 18:02 The AI usage gap 20:30 The new moat in 2026 26:10 How does solar growth affect AI? 28:53 Revisiting the bubble or boom question ------ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ------ In this episode, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and I discuss how a strong US economy, high asset valuations, and rapid AI adoption are sitting in uneasy tension. We explore what past technology cycles can teach us, why safety nets struggle to address disruption, and where genuine optimism still makes sense. This is a January 2025 rerun, which remains strikingly relevant today. We covered: (01:09) State of the US economy (02:28) "That end of 1999 feeling" (05:08) Insights and lessons from the dotcom bubble (09:57) Why today's market is different (13:44) Understanding AI's role in labor displacement (16:05) Are LLMs "souped-up autocorrect"? (20:14) How job displacement erodes communities (23:40) 2025's looming threat of tariffs (26:16) AI's surprising impact on globalization (30:15) Can markets address inequality? (33:06) The maximum level of sustainable national debt (36:31) When should the Fed raise interest rates? (38:57) The need to revitalize local economies (44:53) Did Paul's 2025 predictions come true? ------ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ --- What made 2025 special? In this episode, I reflect on the past year and what it revealed: a K-shaped divide. On one track, AI models are now doing hours of high quality work, improving at exponential pace, and shifting how we work from doing to judging. On the other, organisations and the broader economy are struggling to keep up. Stay to the end for my seasonal film recommendation. I cover:(00:00) Intro (00:45) The state of tool usage in 2025 (6:10) The gap between AI progress and organizational adoption (9:53) AI’s shockingly rapid revenue growth (11:17) The biggest mistake smart people make with AI (14:14)  The inescapable need for physical infrastructure (16:06) What everyone was asking in 2025 (18:08) The new winners of the AI economy (20:48) Why “K” is the letter of 2025 (24:08) Seasonal movie recommendation ---- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem  Production by supermix.io and EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Chantal Smith and Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.