Scaling Laws: The GoLaxy Revelations: China's AI-Driven Influence Operations, with Brett Goldstein, Brett Benson, and Renée DiResta

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

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4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alan Rozenshtein, Senior Editor at Lawfare, speaks with Brett Goldstein, Special Advisor to the Chancellor on National Security and Strategic Initiatives at Vanderbilt University; Brett Benson, Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University; and Renée DiResta, Lawfare Contributing Editor and Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.

The conversation covers the evolution of influence operations from crude Russian troll farms to sophisticated AI systems using large language models; the discovery of GoLaxy documents revealing a "Smart Propaganda System" that collects millions of data points daily, builds psychological profiles, and generates resilient personas; operations targeting Hong Kong's 2020 protests and Taiwan's 2024 election; the fundamental challenges of measuring effectiveness; GoLaxy's ties to Chinese intelligence agencies; why detection has become harder as platform integrity teams have been rolled back and multi-stakeholder collaboration has broken down; and whether the United States can get ahead of this threat or will continue the reactive pattern that has characterized cybersecurity for decades.

Mentioned in this episode:

"The Era of A.I. Propaganda Has Arrived, and America Must Act,” by Brett J. Goldstein and Brett V. Benson (New York Times, August 5, 2025)
"China Turns to A.I. in Information Warfare" by Julian E. Barnes (New York Times, August 6, 2025)
"The GoLaxy Papers: Inside China's AI Persona Army,” by Dina Temple-Raston and Erika Gajda (The Record, September 19, 2025)
"The supply of disinformation will soon be infinite,” by Renée DiResta (The Atlantic, September 2020)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a senior editor at Lawfare.
0:10.9	Today we're bringing you something a little different. It's an episode from our new podcast series, Scaling Laws.
0:18.5	Scaling Laws is a creation of lawfare and Texas law. It has a pretty simple
0:23.2	aim, but a huge mission. We cover the most important AI and law policy questions that are top
0:29.6	of mind for everyone from Sam Altman to Senators on the Hill to folks like you. We dive deep into
0:36.0	the weeds of new laws, various proposals, and what the labs are up to
0:40.4	to make sure you're up to date on the rules and regulations, standards, and ideas that are
0:45.8	shaping the future of this pivotal technology.
0:48.6	If that sounds like something you're going to be interested in, and our hunches it is,
0:52.6	you can find scaling laws wherever you
0:54.9	subscribe to podcasts. You can also follow us on X and Blue Sky. Thank you. When the AI
1:04.7	overlords take over, what are you most excited about? It's not crazy. It's just smart. And just this year in the first six months,
1:12.3	there have been something like a thousand laws. Who's actually building the scaffolding around
1:16.8	how it's going to work, how everyday folks are going to use it? AI only works if society
1:21.4	lets it work. There are so many questions have to be figured out and... Nobody came to my bonus class.
1:27.3	Let's enforce the rules of the
1:28.5	road welcome to scaling laws a podcast from lawfare and the university of texas school of law
1:36.2	that explores the intersection of AI law and policy i'm alan rosenstein associate professor of law
1:42.4	at the university of Minnesota, and research director
1:44.7	and a senior editor at Lawfare. Today I'm talking to Brett Goldstein, special advisor to the
1:50.1	Chancellor on National Security and Strategic Initiatives at Vanderbilt University. Brett Benson,
1:55.6	Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt, and Renee Duresta, Associate Research
	...

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