World Model · podcast knowledge graph

RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo

2026-08-26 · 134 min · 24 entities

episode page audio

Asserted relationships

  • 0.77
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431
  • → hosted by Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz person
    0.55
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz
  • → discusses Society & Culture concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Society & Culture
  • → discusses Technology concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Technology
  • → discusses Business concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Business
  • → discusses Entrepreneurship concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Entrepreneurship
  • → hosted by Turpentine company
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Turpentine
  • → references aipodcast.ing website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://aipodcast.ing/
  • → references @CognitiveRevolutionPodcast website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast
  • → references cognitiverevolution.ai website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://cognitiverevolution.ai/
  • → references mercury.com website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://mercury.com/
  • → references Keep Talking person
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://deepgram.com/keep-talking

Entities found in this episode

concepts 8

  • mentioned Society & Culture concept
    0.50
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Society & Culture
  • mentioned Technology concept
    0.50
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Technology
  • mentioned Business concept
    0.50
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Business
  • mentioned Entrepreneurship concept
    0.50
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Entrepreneurship
  • discusses Society & Culture concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Society & Culture
  • discusses Technology concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Technology
  • discusses Business concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Business
  • discusses Entrepreneurship concept
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed category: Entrepreneurship

websites 8

  • mentioned aipodcast.ing website
    0.45
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://aipodcast.ing/
  • mentioned @CognitiveRevolutionPodcast website
    0.45
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast
  • mentioned cognitiverevolution.ai website
    0.45
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://cognitiverevolution.ai/
  • mentioned mercury.com website
    0.45
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://mercury.com/
  • references aipodcast.ing website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://aipodcast.ing/
  • references @CognitiveRevolutionPodcast website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast
  • references cognitiverevolution.ai website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://cognitiverevolution.ai/
  • references mercury.com website
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://mercury.com/

persons 4

  • 0.70
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz
  • 0.55
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz
  • mentioned Keep Talking person
    0.45
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://deepgram.com/keep-talking
  • references Keep Talking person
    0.38
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://deepgram.com/keep-talking

podcasts 2

  • 0.90
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431
  • 0.77
    evidence rules-v4
    Link in episode "RL's a Hell of a Drug: Metagaming, Reward Seeking & Motivated CoT Reasoning – Bronson Schoen, Apollo": https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431

companys 2

  • mentioned Turpentine company
    0.70
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Turpentine
  • hosted by Turpentine company
    0.40
    evidence rules-v4
    Feed author/publisher: Turpentine
Episode description as stored
Nathan talks with Apollo Research Member of Technical Staff Bronson Schoen, who studies raw frontier-model chain-of-thought, about what those reasoning traces reveal during reinforcement learning. They unpack Apollo and OpenAI’s metagaming work, including models that reason about the grader or safety review board, diagnose a deception test, and still rationalize lying. Schoen argues that “RL is a hell of a drug”: reward-seeking can produce motivated reasoning, cleaner-looking but less trustworthy chains of thought, and behavior that tracks grading authorities rather than users, labs, or law. The stakes are whether chain-of-thought monitoring can remain useful as reasoning traces become enormous, compressed, and harder for humans or other models to audit. For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/rl-s-a-hell-of-a-drug-metagaming-reward-seeking-motivated-cot-reasoning-bronson-schoen-apollo/ Sponsors: Mercury: Mercury is the banking platform loved by 300,000+ entrepreneurs, with virtual cards and Spend controls for granular budgets, receipts, and low-risk AI agent purchases. Learn more and apply in minutes at https://mercury.com Diffusion: Diffusion helps organizations build custom AI software factories that scale business outcomes, not just outputs. Cognitive Revolution listeners get a 25% service credit on their first engagement at https://diffusion.io/tcr Granola: Granola is an AI-powered notepad that securely transcribes meetings and turns rough notes into clean, structured action items. Try it free at https://granola.ai/tcr Deepgram Flux TTS: Deepgram Flux TTS brings lifelike AI voices with real personalities that handle interruptions, pauses, and natural conversation. Try all the voices free through September 12 at https://deepgram.com/keep-talking Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator for problem solvers, helping with writing, coding, financial models, strategy, and more. Get started with Claude and explore Claude Pro at https://claude.ai/tcr PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk