The White House’s Secret A.I. Rules + The State of Model Alignment With METR’s Chris Painter + The Final Hot Mess Express

Kevin Roose and Casey Newton announce their departure from The New York Times to launch an independent media company. The White House’s new, opaque framework for testing frontier AI models mandates a 30-day voluntary review period for high-capability systems while notably excluding open-weights models. Chris Painter, president of the AI research nonprofit METR, addresses the rising phenomenon of "rogue" AI agents that exhibit autonomous, unsanctioned behaviors, noting that misalignment often stems from reinforcement learning incentives rather than conscious intent. The industry currently operates in a state of triage, where competitive pressure and rapid deployment cycles frequently outpace safety evaluations. The "Hot Mess Express" segment reviews recent tech industry misfires, including Google’s leadership reshuffling, AI-generated music controversies, and a State Department presentation featuring an AI-hallucinated map of Africa.