Cybersecurity & Tech

Scaling Laws: The State of AI Safety with Steven Adler

Kevin Frazier, Steven Adler
Tuesday, September 9, 2025, 7:00 AM
What is the current state of AI testing?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Steven Adler, former OpenAI safety researcher, author of Clear-Eyed AI on Substack, and independent AGI-readiness researcher, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, to assess the current state of AI testing and evaluations. The two walk through Steven’s views on industry efforts to improve model testing and what he thinks regulators ought to know and do when it comes to preventing AI harms.

You can read Steven’s Substack here: https://stevenadler.substack.com/

Thanks to Leo Wu for research assistance!

This episode ran on the Lawfare Daily podcast feed as the Sept. 12 episode.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.


Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at UT Austin School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare .
Steven Adler is an AI researcher who previously led dangerous capabilities testing for OpenAI. Steven is also the author of a newsletter on how to safely manage advanced AI systems.
}

Subscribe to Lawfare