Sharon Goldman

OpenAI gives first detailed debrief of the Hugging Face incident at Black Hat conference I attended a session where researchers said the company is "consciously slowing down research to enhance security" while a full technical postmortem is still underway. www.groundlevel-ai.c…

OpenAI gives first detailed debrief of the Hugging Face incident at Black Hat conference groundlevel-ai.com

My final story for Fortune as a staffer is the last of four deep-dives I reported on the ground about communities grappling with the AI data center boom: Two mayors, one $10 billion AI data center, and a growing divide in small-town Texas fortune.com/2026/06/16/a...

Two mayors, one $10 billion AI data center, and a growing divide in small-town Texas | Fortune fortune.com

Who gets a seat at the table to decide if frontier AI is safe? Dario Amodei wants independent evaluators to help “pace the frontier.” But the divide between AI safety and cybersecurity complicates a seemingly simple question: Who should do the evaluating? www.groundlevel-ai.co…

Who gets a seat at the table to decide if frontier AI is safe? groundlevel-ai.com

I was absolutely gobsmacked that what I think of as the AI doom monsters had suddenly broken out of AI-land and into the mainstream— to the point that I saw non-AI industry folks I care about sharing scary posts on social media. Things have gotten surreal. open.substack.com/pu…

TG-AI-F: The AI doom monsters escape into the mainstream groundlevel-ai.com

www.groundlevel-ai.com/p/taylor-lor...

Taylor Lorenz on the weird, angry culture war over AI groundlevel-ai.com

www.groundlevel-ai.com/p/ai-safety-...

AI safety and cybersecurity have long been two different worlds. In the age of AI agents, they’re colliding. groundlevel-ai.com

It turns out that John Deere is yet another unexpected Fortune 500 beneficiary of the AI data center boom. Full story: open.substack.com/pub/sharongo...

In Iowa, John Deere showed me its AI for farming. But its unexpected AI-era boom? Moving dirt for data centers groundlevel-ai.com

Are the kids going to be all right? A weekend in the redwoods with my 22-year-old nephew made me wonder what the AI era looks like to the generation inheriting it. open.substack.com/pub/sharongo...

Are the kids going to be all right? groundlevel-ai.com

AI companies and their leaders have long been fluent in a language that can sound downright biblical. But lately, I’m exhausted by the AI industry's seemingly-permanent state of prophecy. www.groundlevel-ai.com/p/i-am-exhau...

I am exhausted by the AI industry’s permanent state of prophecy groundlevel-ai.com

This weekend I revisited something I wrote back in my @VentureBeat days, right after OpenAI’s GPT-4 was released. It's amazing how much the AI industry's conversation about openness has changed in just three years... open.substack.com/pub/sharongo...

The fight over open models has entered a new phase groundlevel-ai.com

The OpenAI Hugging Face breach changes a core assumption: AI models must be treated as potential adversaries “It’s such a visceral example of how different the world is now,” he said. “There was no attacker. The agent has become a malicious insider.” www.groundlevel-ai.com/p/t…

The OpenAI Hugging Face breach changes a core assumption: AI models must be treated as potential adversaries groundlevel-ai.com

Question for the AI policy and infrastructure crowd: Is the debate over U.S. AI competitiveness too focused on chips and models, rather than the politics of building AI infrastructure? That's the argument I explore in my latest essay for Ground Level AI: www.groundlevel-ai.com…

America's AI race is being fought on two fronts groundlevel-ai.com

I have been thinking a lot about this the last few days: I realize I actually found the timing of all the “AI could kill us all” rhetoric this week deeply distasteful.

One thing I keep thinking about: AI insiders have developed an entire language for talking to each other. Then those conversations escape onto the broader internet and can sound bonkers. @taylorlorenz.bsky.social and I talked about that, AI backlash, anti-AI slop and much more on the podcast.

AI safety and cybersecurity have long been two different worlds. In the age of AI agents, they’re colliding. The OpenAI–Hugging Face incident has AI safety and cybersecurity experts arguing over what went wrong — and who has the better playbook for what comes next.

1/ One interesting ripple from today's news that Citadel bought Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness stock portfolio: I'm told the fund attracted significant participation from people across the AI industry, including a number of Anthropic employees, often through SPVs.

🎉Ground Level AI turns one month old today! 🥳 if you've subscribed, read a story, shared one, had me on a podcast or just encouraged me along the way -- thank you!! 🙏 www groundlevel-ai.com 🎊

At final Black Hat keynote (called a locknote, ha ha) panelists say they are surprised at how the OpenAI - Hugging Face incident debrief, as well as other reporting on AI agent escapees (Anthropic/Meta) - has turned into a marketing/PR play. "Felony humble-bragging," said one.