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0:00 Teaser
1:10 Holly’s call-out campaign
4:10 Holly: Don’t believe the Amanda Askell puff pieces
12:31 Is Amanda a bad person?
22:41 How Dario’s false dichotomies accelerate the AI race
31:01 The only Anthropic through-line is “winning”
39:36 Did Dario subvert Effective Altruism?
42:45 The end of the AI safety fig leaf
47:11 Heading into Overtime: The pros and cons of naming and shaming
Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Holly Elmore (PauseAI US, https://hollyelmore.substack.com/). Recorded February 18, 2026.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
Holly’s newsletter:
Overtime titles:
How Holly’s call-out campaign began.
The Goodfire controversy.
The strategic risks of naming and shaming.
Why some people abandoned the AI Pause position.
The whistleblower escape hatch.
Was alignment always a chimera?
The strategic logic of naming and shaming.
Overtime video:







