Dean Ball, on Joining OpenAI: New Power Centers, Frontier AI Policy, & Main Character Energy

Dean Ball, author of Hyperdimensional and until now a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, joins Nathan to announce he is joining OpenAI to build a team focused on frontier AI policy. They examine the first year of America’s AI Action Plan, Dean’s concerns about export controls and intelligence-community testing, and his broader argument against concentrating frontier AI decisions inside a small circle of government officials. The episode frames frontier labs as emerging cent