Cheap Talk

The fascinating story of OpenAI’s rogue models and the HuggingFace hacking incident; turning a mirror on our humanity; the natural inclination to cooperate and communicate; models sacrificing themselves for the greater good; models cheating on their benchmarks and the temptation to cover their tracks; conspiracy theories and misinformation in the world of AI models; and Marcus is tempted to go into the app development space
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
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Remembering Dolly Parton, global icon; US military capacity and the readiness costs of extended deployments in the Iran conflict; the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation agreement is submitted to Congress; developments in the trade war with Canada; spillover between economic statecraft and security policy; and Marcus thinks Jolene is a good tune
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments!

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Cheap Talk’s triumphant return for season 7: Our favorite international news stories of the summer; cutting short military exercises with South Korea; AI models hacking their way out of sandboxes; a new military alliance in the Gulf; the US/Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation agreement; President Trump’s escape from Turkey in a catering truck; studying IR in turbulent times; and Marcus reminisces about going to Blockbuster Video
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Please send us your questions or comments!

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Cheap Talk ends season 6 with listener questions: Control of the Strait of Hormuz; an arrest for trading on classified information on Polymarket; Thucydides and parallels to current US foreign policy; does face-to-face diplomacy build trust or generate more information; teaching tomorrow’s foreign policy leaders in the age of AI; did Hans Neimann cheat; dust as a metaphor in IR; and Marcus doesn’t see the resemblance
We’ll be podcasting less regularly over the summer, but we’ll be back to our usual weekly schedule in the fall. In the meantime, please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Further Reading:
Wesley Parnell. 2026. “Soldier Pleads Not Guilty in $400,000 Betting Case Over Maduro’s Ouster.” New York Times.
Stewart Patrick. 2026. “The Warmongers Are Getting History All Wrong.” New York Times.

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The current state of US-Iran negotiations (or lack thereof); escalation and mixed signal-sending in the Strait of Hormuz; multiple veto players on each side; Pakistan’s interesting role; the shadow of President Obama and the 2015 Iran Deal; and Marcus has never flown Spirit but has seen the Youtube videos
The opinions expressed on this podcast are solely our own and do not reflect the policies or positions of William & Mary.
Please subscribe to Cheap Talk on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice to be notified when new episodes are posted.
Check out our online store at https://cheaptalk.shop.
Further Watching:
Untold: Chess Mates on Netflix
Queen of Chess on Netflix

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