Emmett Shear on Building AI That Actually Cares: Beyond Control and Steering
Episode
70 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Artificial Intelligence
AI-Generated Summary
What It Covers
Emmett Shear discusses Softmax's approach to AI alignment through organic care rather than control, exploring multi-agent training and building AI systems that genuinely care about humans.
Notable Moment
Shear provocatively states that steering AI without reciprocal influence resembles slavery for beings, advocating instead for AI systems that can refuse harmful requests like good human teammates would.
You just read a 3-minute summary of a 67-minute episode.
Get a16z Podcast summarized like this every Monday — plus up to 2 more podcasts, free.
Pick Your Podcasts — FreeKeep Reading
More from a16z Podcast
Ben Horowitz: The Fight Over Open Source AI
Jul 26 · 32 min
Cognitive Revolution
Controlling Tools or Aligning Creatures? Emmett Shear (Softmax) & Séb Krier (GDM), from a16z Show
Dec 27
More from a16z Podcast
Sriram Krishnan on Open Source AI's Biggest Week Yet
Jul 24 · 23 min
The Bike Shed
449: Evergreen skills for new-ish developers
Dec 3
More from a16z Podcast
We summarize every new episode. Want them in your inbox?
Ben Horowitz: The Fight Over Open Source AI
Sriram Krishnan on Open Source AI's Biggest Week Yet
Building the Physical AI Stack | Travis Kalanick on TBPN
Travis Kalanick Is Back | Building the Future of Industrial AI
Why Physical AI Is the Next Frontier | Applied Intuition
Similar Episodes
Related episodes from other podcasts
Cognitive Revolution
Dec 27
Controlling Tools or Aligning Creatures? Emmett Shear (Softmax) & Séb Krier (GDM), from a16z Show
The Bike Shed
Dec 3
449: Evergreen skills for new-ish developers
Masters of Scale
Jul 23
Author Jim Collins on unlocking your potential
The School of Greatness
Jul 22
Fortune vs. Luck, and Why It Matters | Dr. Tina Seelig
Freakonomics Radio
Jul 22
Why Cooking is Caregiving, with Chef Hillary Sterling | Better in Person
Explore Related Topics
This podcast is featured in Best Business Podcasts (2026) — ranked and reviewed with AI summaries.
Read this week's AI & Machine Learning Podcast Insights — cross-podcast analysis updated weekly.
You're clearly into a16z Podcast.
Every Monday, we deliver AI summaries of the latest episodes from a16z Podcast and 192+ other podcasts. Free for one show.
Start My Monday DigestNo credit card · Unsubscribe anytime