The Next Chapter of AI Is Inside Our Software

Erik Torenberg sits down with Box CEO Aaron Levie, and a16z’s Martin Casado, and Steven Sinofsky to debate how the AI industry should think about safety, security, and regulation as increasingly capable agents move into the real world. They argue that much of today’s conversation is happening before we have clearly defined the risks we’re trying to regulate. Drawing on earlier waves of computing, from computer viruses and the early internet to aviation and automobiles, they ask what AI can learn from industries that developed safety standards only after understanding how their technologies actually failed. The conversation then gets concrete: agents don’t get tired, can operate at enormous scale, and can probe systems in ways human employees never could. That could require rethinking permissions, authentication, operating systems, and the security stack itself. They also discuss why AI innovation may increasingly move beyond the frontier labs and into the software built around the models. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:50 - Pacing the Frontier: Reacting to the AI Safety Discourse 03:50 - Species Extinction Talk: Do Labs Actually Believe Their Own Rhetoric? 06:49 - The Nationalization Question & Whose Job Safety Really Is 11:32 - David Sacks vs Government: "You're Asking Us to Regulate What?" 12:08 - 2028 as the AI Election 28:39 - Why Cybersecurity Has Historically Rejected Practical Solutions 32:30 - The Craziest Covert Channel Ever Seen 48:38 - LLMs as Decision Engines vs Chatbots 53:01 - Why the Labs Haven't Built This: The Being vs Tool Mindset Resources: Follow Aaron Levie on X: https://x.com/levie Follow Martin Casado on X: https://x.com/martin_casado Follow Steven Sinofsky on X: https://x.com/stevesi Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken…