AI in the AM — Week 1 Highlights (June 2026)

About this episode

This episode covers a week of significant AI news and developments, including safety concerns and business applications.

This first highlights edition of the morning experiment tracks a week of fast-moving AI frontier news, from closed-door recursive self-improvement debates to OpenAI’s call for independent model review. You’ll hear why labs are betting on AI monitors, where safety plans still look thin, and how cheap scaffolds are already improving tax workflows. The episode also tests moderation progress and surveys AI science, cybersecurity, Vatican ethics, solo-business automation, and mental health support. Mercury: Run your finances with virtual cards, spending limits, merchant/category locks, and AI-friendly tools like API keys, MCP, and CLI. Check out Mercury at https://mercury.com Sponsor: Claude: Claude by Anthropic is an AI collaborator that understands your workflow and helps you tackle research, writing, coding, and organization with deep context. Get started with Claude and explore Claude Pro at https://claude.ai/tcr

People in this episode

Hosts: Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz

Topics covered

• AI news
• AI safety
• AI ethics
• business automation
• mental health support
• cybersecurity

Keywords

• AI
• recursive self-improvement
• model review
• tax workflows
• moderation
• cybersecurity
• automation
• mental health

Sponsors

Mercury, Claude

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: OpenAI, Anthropic

Places: Vatican

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