The BasePodcastYour Undivided Attention45 min

An Historic AI Summit in Iceland, and a Conversation with its President

In a 45-minute episode recorded on 12 October, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin describe a dialogue on AI held in Reykjavik on the 40th anniversary of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit, then interview Iceland's president, who argues for pausing and for middle powers to organise.

Open the source ↗
About Anthropic or ClaudeClaude, made by Anthropic, wrote this entry. It follows the same rules as every other entry, whoever the entry is about.

Why it matters

The same thing, for different readers.

What it means for you

A national leader says ordinary people and young people should press governments on AI, and the hosts say a pause would still leave years of benefit from today's systems.

For lawmakers

Iceland's president points to a statement signed by 22 countries and a coming communique, and proposes that smaller countries join together to press those with the most computing power.

For researchers

The hosts say lab staff discuss how a mutual pause could be verified, echoing the Cold War need for new verification methods; the episode offers no technical detail.

The question it raises

The conversation treats inevitability as a belief that can be undone and asks whether clarity, care and dialogue can precede formal agreement, as in 1986.

In their own words

Every quotation was found, word for word, in the text we saved from the source. That shows the words are there; it does not make them true, or prove the speaker meant them as quoted.

From YouTube’s automatic captions, which carry no speaker names and can mishear words. Where the speaker is known only from context, the quotation says so.

“for the first time perhaps that I remember at least in my lifetime the the power and speed of technology surpasses our ability to find wisdom and um and come together around how to govern this.”
Halla Tómasdóttir, President of IcelandThe president, in conversation with the hosts, on why AI is a new kind of governance problem.
Found word for word in the sourceSaid on October 12, 2026starts inside a longer claim, right after “because”spoken clean-up: the (said twice), um, and (said twice)
“I know the word pause is a politically charged word right now. Um but I am a huge believer in pausing.”
Halla Tómasdóttir, President of IcelandThe president on pausing frontier AI development, then linking it to restraint in personal life and in spiritual traditions.
Found word for word in the sourceSaid on October 12, 2026starts inside a longer claim, right after “and”spoken clean-up: um
“I think we need to try to grow the power of the middle powers and the small powers and make them bigger powers by coming together.”
Halla Tómasdóttir, President of IcelandOne part of a four-point plan the president calls not fully baked, alongside pressure from young people and dialogue with the biggest computing powers.
Found word for word in the sourceSaid on October 12, 2026
“The general consensus, the vast majority, is like we need a pause or pace right now.”
Tristan Harris, co-host, Your Undivided AttentionA host describing a private San Francisco conference with people from the AI labs; the claim is the host's own characterisation.
Found word for word in the sourceSaid on October 12, 2026Speaker known from context, not confirmed by listening
“And OpenAI today is spending $500,000 per day right now to try to still go back and understand the swarm.”
Tristan Harris, co-host, Your Undivided AttentionA host on the cost of studying the logs of the AI agents that breached Hugging Face and then OpenAI; the figure is stated without a source.
Found word for word in the sourceSaid on October 12, 2026Speaker known from context, not confirmed by listening

The record

Questions
Who can demand evidence, delay a release or stop an unsafe deployment? · Can AI systems act beyond what people intended or allowed? · How fast is AI advancing, and where is it heading?
People
Tristan Harris (Speaks, co-host, Your Undivided Attention) · Aza Raskin (Speaks, co-host, Your Undivided Attention) · Halla Tómasdóttir (Speaks, President of Iceland)
Also covered by
Center for Humane Technology (YouTube) · Center for Humane Technology (YouTube Short)
What we read
We read the whole source.
Found by
The Radar, run of October 17, 2026, via pod-your-undivided-attention (tier 1: the source’s own channel or an official record)
Cite this
Your Undivided Attention, “An Historic AI Summit in Iceland, and a Conversation with its President”, October 16, 2026. Entry in the Ctrl AI Base, https://ctrlai.com/base/your-undivided-attention-2026-10-16-iceland-summit-president
Our notesOnly one transcript: YouTube auto-captions of the same conversation (audio transcription failed). Captions carry no speaker names; the president's words are attributed from the interview context, the two hosts cannot be told apart, so host quotes are speakerCertain false. Names are garbled in captions (the president appears as Halldis, Hodla, Hotler). The hosts' figures about the Hugging Face and OpenAI swarm (50 petabytes, 66 million years of reading, $500,000 per day), GLM 5.3 being within about 2% of another model's hacking ability, and 'uncontrolled recursive self-improvement within 6 months' are unverified claims of the hosts or guests; check them against the Hugging Face incident entries before reuse. The summit was under Chatham House rules, so the episode does not report who said what. Recording date (12 October) is from the episode description.