Cheap Talk

Weekly conversations on international relations and geopolitics AI summary

Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes Visit website › Government · EN · 136 episodes · latest 2026-11-08

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What it is about

Cheap Talk is an every-week-or-so international relations podcast with Jeff Kaplow and Marcus Holmes, professors of government at William & Mary.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.

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Latest episodes

We're the Chimpanzees

2026-11-08 · 51 min · Season 7, episode 11

Ben Harack joins Cheap Talk to talk about AI risk and governance; power shifts caused by AI; translating AI into a power advantage; technical means to verify limits on AI; the problem of dark compute; prospects for a…
Deemed Persona Non Grata

2026-11-03 · 45 min · Season 7, episode 10

Ukraine access to Starshield is at least temporarily restored; Austria expels suspected Russian spies; the rational calculus of declaring someone persona non grata; rationalists love espionage; and Marcus likes the show…
There's Something Different About Them

2026-10-26 · 1 hr 0 min · Season 7, episode 9

New items in the Cheap Talk shop, including a Mathpocalypse t-shirt and AI sticker packs; placing blame about Ukraine’s access to Starshield; whether polling is damaging to the public discourse; what the polls tell us…
Weeping for the Mathematicians

2026-10-17 · 59 min · Season 7, episode 8

A series of unfortunate events in the Russia/Ukraine conflict; the effect of domestic politics on US assistance to Ukraine; the ability of Europe to provide intelligence and battlefield internet access; mathpocalypse…
Envoys of Friendship

2026-10-03 · 52 min · Season 7, episode 7

AI agents are like middle schoolers; assessing progress from the Trump/Xi summit; combatting the security dilemma with summitry; creating new communication channels for AI incidents; panda diplomacy and overplaying…
Humans Make Mistakes Too

2026-09-26 · 1 hr 4 min · Season 7, episode 6

A big week for face-to-face diplomacy; the UN as a safe forum for high-level visits; the importance of side-meetings outside the General Assembly Hall; another Trump-Zelensky meeting; the logic of a post-election deal…
The Lingo of Our AI Tech Overlords

2026-09-18 · 1 hr 0 min · Season 7, episode 5

The public debate over AI and the end of humanity; proposals to slow down AI development and improve safety; the challenges of coordinating domestically and internationally; normal accident theory and the nuclear safety…
Not Routine at All

2026-09-14 · 51 min · Season 7, episode 4

The international security implications of the Hugging Face hack; rogue AI agents and cyberattack attribution; competing explanations for the CIA Director’s recent visit to Moscow; signaling to various audiences;…
This Could Result in an International Incident

2026-09-05 · 48 min · Season 7, episode 3

The fascinating story of OpenAI’s rogue models and the HuggingFace hacking incident; turning a mirror on our humanity; the natural inclination to cooperate and communicate; models sacrificing themselves for the greater…
Twice as Popular as Taylor Swift

2026-08-30 · 48 min · Season 7, episode 2

Remembering Dolly Parton, global icon; US military capacity and the readiness costs of extended deployments in the Iran conflict; the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation agreement is submitted to Congress; developments…

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Owner: Jeff Kaplow
Oldest episode in feed: 09/2020 · over 6 years
Typical length: 57 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone

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