Show Notes
We may have reached the “ChatGPT moment” in agentic AI. Over the past couple weeks, an open-source AI agent called OpenClaw (previously known as Clawdbot) has taken the AI world by storm. It boasts nearly 200,000 stars on Github and has adopters scrambling to buy Mac Minis to run the program locally. The lobster-themed agent works like an ultra-fast, super-smart personal assistant capable of answering emails, booking flights, ordering coffee, managing calendars, updating its source code, and much more without human intervention. However, it’s also raised some major concerns around privacy and security because the program requires total access to your local system and personal accounts. To help make sense of this watershed moment, Pioneers of AI is joined by agentic expert Joelle Pineau. The former VP of AI Research at Meta and current Chief AI Officer at Cohere, Pineau is helping build the next generation of foundation AI models and enterprise agents. She offers her insights on the promise and perils of OpenClaw, why open source matters, and the value of developing AI models outside of the US and China. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai At the center of AI is people, so we want to hear from you! Share your experiences with AI — or ask us a burning question — by leaving a voicemail at 601-633-2424. Your voice could be featured in a future episode! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
More from Pioneers of AI
Few companies have as much influence over AI’s trajectory as OpenAI. Reid Hoffman sits down with CFO Sarah Friar to understand the precipice of the moment we are in and the decisions that could shape what comes next for each of us. This conversation was recorded live as part of Masters of Scale Summit on October 21, 2026, at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It often feels like the world is divided when it comes to AI — do you lean in, or opt out? But what if that tension exists within your own household? This week, we're reprising a candid conversation between host Rana el Kaliouby and her two kids. Her son Adam is an AI enthusiast and her daughter Jana is an AI skeptic, a dynamic she wrote about in a recent essay, "I'm an AI Scientist, My Daughter Refuses to Use AI, and I'm Okay with It." She asks them both to explain their different perspectives on AI, how they've embraced it and how they haven't — prompting Rana to reflect on her role as a mother and an AI leader raising both of them. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Journalist Kevin Roose has closely watched and written about the AI race for about a decade, and his new book “The AGI Chronicles” documents the handful of driven people at the center of OpenAI, Google Deepmind, and Anthropic – along with their messy relationships, rivalries, decisions, and breakthroughs on the quest to create artificial superintelligence. Kevin recently left his role as a New York Times tech columnist and co-host of the podcast Hard Fork to start a new show, Machine Gods. Host Rana el Kaliouby sits down with Kevin to explore what his books reveals about the AI headlines we’re all obsessing over, his concerns around AI safety, and whether AGI is already here. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Thibault “Tibo” Sottiaux is OpenAI’s head of Product & Platform, making him responsible for the AI tools used by more than a billion users worldwide. Host Rana el Kaliouby spoke with Tibo about why he’s “proud” OpenAI delayed its latest Astra model over safety concerns, the new suite of agentic products released at DevDay, and what it’s like to lead inside a frontier AI company in this extraordinary moment in history. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
On this week’s episode we’re excited to share an episode from our sister podcast Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest vision of the future. Useful robots won’t be programmed one task at a time; they’ll need to adapt to unfamiliar objects, environments, and robot bodies. Physical Intelligence cofounder Chelsea Finn (named last month to the TIME100 AI list for 2026) joins Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger to explain how general-purpose robot models learn to act in the messy physical world. She explores why lower-quality training data can strengthen a model, what months of failed laundry-folding attempts revealed, and how the same system can work across different robot platforms. A robot mistaking an oven for a drawer becomes a lesson in the strange line between useful generalization and obvious error. They also examine why robot demos can mislead, how hardware reliability can stall progress, and what it will take to move AI off the screen and into the world. Congratulations to Chelsea, recently named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/chelsea-finn/