What Is a Soft Takeover by AI?

Cate Hall is the CEO of Astera, a private foundation focused on AI risk and frontier technology. Before leading Astera, Cate’s unconventional career path took her from practicing law (including work on Supreme Court briefs) to becoming the world’s top-ranked female poker player in 2016. After overcoming personal struggles with addiction, she co-founded Alvea, a biotech company developing shelf-stable vaccines for pandemic response, before joining Astera. In this conversation, Cate shares insights on human psychology, agency as a learnable skill, and why she believes AI’s biggest risk may be a “soft takeover” in which humans gradually lose independence and meaning.

We explore:

• How Cate’s approach to poker focused on reading people rather than pure game theory, and why this contrarian strategy worked

• Why people who always try to “play” high status in conversations often have psychological issues

• The critical difference between ambition and agency, and why they’re often confused

• How LSD helped Cate break out of her career path and discover her own agency

• Why Cate believes we need a slowdown in AI development to develop the social technologies to manage it

• The challenge of maintaining meaning in human life as AI systems increasingly mediate our experiences

• How Astera is using investment as a philanthropic tool to help steer frontier technology development

—

Thank you to the partners who make this possible

Auth0: Secure access for everyone. But not just anyone.

Brex: The banking solution for startups.

—

Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/how-to-be-agentic-in-the-age-of-ai-cate-hall

—

Timestamps

(00:00) Introduction to Cate Hall

(03:56) Cate’s role as CEO of Astera

(04:52) Cate’s poker career and focus on live reading

(07:02) The intuitive ‘people radar’ Cate has in identifying exceptional talent

(11:16) Status dynamics in conversations

(16:13) The parallel between poker and startup evolution

(19:18) The German wave in poker and game theory

(24:22) Cate’s legal career and Supreme Court experience

(27:05) The difference between ambition and agency

(29:13) How LSD helped Cate discover her agency

(31:26) Leaving poker and dealing with mental health issues

(34:26) The founding story of Alvea

(38:14) The founding story of Astera

(43:15) Cate’s journey into AI risk

(45:50) The concept of a “soft takeover” and how AI might hollow out human experience

(49:46) The overwhelming challenge of addressing AI risk

(51:20) Astera’s approach to steering technology development

(53:15) Astera’s investment in Last Energy

(54:20) How philanthropy and investing work together at Astera

(57:22) Practical ways to increase personal agency

(1:07:20) Final meditations

—

Follow Cate Hall

X: https://x.com/catehall

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cate-hall-9a81a35/

Newsletter: https://usefulfictions.substack.com/

—

Resources and episode mentions

—Books—

• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296/

• Impro: https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178

• Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies: https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0198739834/

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion: https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777/

—People—

• Jed McCaleb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-mccaleb-4052a4/

• Charlie Carrel on X: https://x.com/charlie_carrel

• Seemay Chou on X: https://x.com/seemaychou

• Ben Kuhn on X: https://x.com/benkuhn

Episode resources continued at: https://www.generalist.com/p/how-to-be-agentic-in-the-age-of-ai-cate-hall

—

Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.