logo
episode-header-image
About this episode

What is the right way to regulate AI? There appears to be as many different answers to that as there are regulators. On today's episode of Equity, we're bringing you a live interview from TechCrunch's recent Strictly VC event. Equity co-host Becca Szkutak sat down with Helen Toner, the director of strategy and foundational research grants from the Center of Security and Emerging Technology and a former board member of OpenAI. The pair discussed companies' ability to self-regulate, what impact regulation could have on startup innovation and so much more. 

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Up next
Yesterday
Is SaaS on its way out? The future belongs to agents, according to Narada AI's CEO
“SaaS is going away,” says Dave Park, co-founder and CEO of Narada AI. The company is betting on a future where AI agents, not humans, navigate enterprise software on our behalf. Today on Equity, Park joins Rebecca Bellan on Equity to talk about the rise of agentic AI, what it ac ... Show More
25m 29s
Jul 3
Why Cloudflare wants AI companies to pay for content
Cloudflare wants AI companies to pay up. The cloud infrastructure provider is launching a new experiment called Pay per Crawl that would let publishers charge AI firms every time their bots scrape a site, and it could reshape how content is accessed and monetized online. Today on ... Show More
28m 1s
Jun 27
Big Tech lands an early win in legal battles against publishers
This week, two major AI companies scored early wins in court, with federal judges siding with Meta and Anthropic in separate lawsuits over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The decisions represent the first real legal validation of AI companies’ argument that ... Show More
35m 31s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2024
Why AI companies should want regulation now with Helen Toner
What is the right way to regulate AI? There appears to be as many different answers to that as there are regulators. In this week's episode of Found, we're bringing you a live interview from TechCrunch's recent Strictly VC event. Becca Szkutak talked with Helen Toner, the directo ... Show More
18m 35s
Oct 2023
When AI and Genomics Collide
Today’s episode continues our coverage from a16z’s recent AI Revolution event. You’ll hear a16z Bio & Health GP Vijay Pande speak with Daphne Koller about the fascinating convergence of machine learning and genomics – two industries that have benefitted decades of investment and ... Show More
24m 16s
Oct 2024
Building a Thriving AI Ecosystem with Lisa Su
Lisa Su has transformed AMD into a global leader in AI and high-performance computing.In this episode of the AI Revolution (AIR) series , Bob Swan, a16z Operating Partner and former CEO of Intel, sits down with Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, to discuss how her leadership has propelled AMD’ ... Show More
30m 59s
Jul 2024
Live at Tech Week: Delivering AI Products to Millions
Less than two years since the breakthrough of text-based AI, we now see incredible developments in multimodal AI models and their impact on millions of users.As part of New York Tech Week, we brought together a live audience and three leaders from standout companies delivering AI ... Show More
46m 9s
Mar 2025
Why AI Voice Feels More Human Than Ever
AI voice technology has been around for years — think Siri or Alexa — but the magic has been missing. That’s changing, and quickly!In this episode, Anish Acharya, General Partner at a16z, and Olivia Moore, Partner at a16z, explore why AI voice is reaching a breakthrough moment, h ... Show More
43m 19s
Apr 2024
Tech Partying Like Its 2021 with Rick Heitzmann + A Better Way To Carpool with Joanna McFarland CEO of HopSkipDrive | Okay, Computer.
On this episode of “Okay, Computer,” Dan Nathan and Rick Heitzmann of FirstMark Capital give an update on the IPO market, and what to expect from some of the most valuable unicorns in 2024. Topics they hit include; the Reddit IPO (4:00), IPO outlook for 2024 (10:30), investing in ... Show More
1h 1m
Feb 2025
China Challenges Silicon Valley for A.I. Dominance
Financial markets went into a panic last week over an obscure Chinese tech start-up called DeepSeek. The company now threatens to upend the world of artificial intelligence and the race for who will dominate it.Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at The Times, discusses how DeepSeek ca ... Show More
23m 16s
Aug 2024
Gavin Baker - AI, Semiconductors, and the Robotic Frontier - [Invest Like the Best, EP.385]
My guest this week is Gavin Baker. Gavin is the managing partner and CIO of Atreides Management, and he has been on the show many times before. He is one of my favorite investors to talk to and this may be my favorite conversation with him. Gavin first started covering Nvidia as ... Show More
1h 31m
Mar 2021
AI Today Podcast: Advancing AI in Finance, Interview with Agus Sudjianto, Wells Fargo
The finance and banking industries have long been ahead of other industries with their adoption of AI. From fraud detection, to roboadvising, to NLP applications the finance industry is adopting every pattern of the Seven Patterns of AI. In this episode of the AI Today podcast ho ... Show More
30m 59s
Oct 2024
Can California Regulate A.I.? + Silicon Valley’s Super Babies + System Update!
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California vetoed Senate Bill 1047, an A.I. safety bill that would have curtailed the growth of the technology. What received a lot less attention were the 18 other important A.I. bills he signed into law over the past month. We walk through what i ... Show More
1h 9m