Bots behaving badly, the latest on AI regulation and investigating Kevin's sloppelganger

Machine Gods Machine Gods NPR App Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music iHeart Radio RSS link Sign up for the [TITLE] Newsletter Get perks with [Podcast Title]+ Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed. LEARN MORE --> Bots behaving badly, the latest on AI regulation and investigating Kevin’s sloppelganger October 21, 2026 7:00 AM ET By Kevin Roose , Casey Newton , Danush Parvaneh , Rachel Cohn Bots Behaving Badly + Is AI Regulation On The Right Track + Kevin’s Sloppelganger Listen · 50:50 50:50 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed < iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-6009860/nx-s1-mx-6009860-1" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript On the first episode of Machine Gods, Kevin Roose and Casey Newton ask: How worried should we be about rogue AI agents? After OpenAI’s Hugging Face breach, we discuss the first sighting of a rogue AI agent fleet linked to a Chinese AI company, Anthropic’s Claude sending a bogus homicide tip to Philadelphia police, and a new Anthropic report warning AI agents may be months away from self-replicating on smart TVs and other home devices. Then, who’s going to rein this in? We size up President Trump’s new Super Intelligence Force, the FTC subpoenas and EU AI Act investigations into OpenAI and Anthropic, and ask whether regulators are anywhere close to getting this right. And finally, Kevin investigates his sloppelganger. Someone made an AI-generated rip-off of his new book, The AGI Chronicles , and sold it on Amazon. Now he’s coming for them. For a transcript of this episode, check out npr.org/machinegods . You can watch this full episode on YouTube , Spotify or Apple . And if you’ve got a question you want us to answer, you can drop us a comment on any of those platforms or email us at hey@machinegods.fm NPR does not offer or accept money for coverage or interviews. Anyone who makes such an offer or request is not an NPR employee and does not represent NPR. Facebook Flipboard Email