Hard Fork

OpenAI’s Two-Week Pause + Jill Lepore on the Threat of the “Artificial State” + Train of Thought

August 21, 2026·1h 3m·6-min readconversationaltechnology
Podzilla Summary (6 min)
TLDR
OpenAI paused training on its frontier AI model Astra after internal security incidents and concerns it may have crossed a critical cybersecurity threshold. Historian Jill Lepore argues in her new book that AI is part of a broader political project eroding democracy, creating what she cal

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Guest

J

Jill Lepore

conversational on Hard Fork

Mentions

Books, people, and resources mentioned in this episode.

People

Jill Lepore

Books

The Rise and Fall of the Artificial Stateby Jill Lepore

Companies

OpenAIMetaGoogleHugging Face

Products & Tools

Meta Ray-BansSimple Closure

Topics

Artificial IntelligenceCybersecurityData ScienceEthicsLong Form JournalismMachine LearningTech IndustryUs Politics

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