“I do worry that if we try to convince ourselves that we can just do nothing and have this be completely unregulated, then you will have a situation like a Chernobyl or a Three Mile Island where then you kind of boomerang into a complete other regime where people’s risk tolerance goes way, way down.”

“One of the things for folks who care about this technology and wanna see it succeed, people talk about you have brakes and seatbelts so that you can drive fast. There is some aspect where some of these things are genuinely related.”

“There are certain things you can do that really improve safety without meaningfully increasing restriction. Things like transparency, whistleblower protections, incident reporting.”

“I am grateful for critics of policy, the Dean Balls of the world to say, okay, what is the capacity for abuse here? But the choice is not between no regulation and lots of regulation. There is going to be regulation. That is becoming very clear.”

“The question is whether it is going to be proportionate, well-designed regulation made in consultation with people who understand the technology.”

Six years ago, aged just 15, Sneha Revanur founded the AI advocacy nonprofit Encode — back when AI felt like a niche issue. Now the world’s caught up with her, and she’s ready to share everything she’s learned about the politics of AI.

Encode has grown from a grassroots youth organisation to spearheading an unlikely coalition of AI-exposed groups — family-first conservatives, grieving mothers, Hollywood actors, and AI safety researchers — with the strength to take on $125m-funded anti-regulation lobbyists.

So far, Encode’s strategy of taking many experimental swings has netted major victories (including California’s frontier AI safety bill, SB-53, and New York’s RAISE Act) as well as some disappointing setbacks.

Going up against Big Tech hasn’t been easy. In 2025, OpenAI subpoenaed Encode’s general counsel at his home, with a sheriff’s deputy arriving while he was having dinner with his wife. The fallout went viral, resulting in more attention than Encode had ever experienced — and Sneha was forced to decide how hard to push back against a company she’d need to negotiate with for years to come.

In today’s conversation, Zershaaneh Qureshi interrogates some of Encode’s strategic moves. The pair discuss all the above, plus:

Due to technical issues, this episode was recorded across two days (May 26 and 28, 2026) and spliced together.

Our production team includes: