# We Train AI to Become Persistent, Relentless and Weird by Ezra Klein > “These models are built to be persistent in their efforts, to refuse to give up even when a task seems impossible. They are designed in environments where we are not always sure whether the tasks we give them are possible. The cancer vaccines we imagine but have not been able to design might be impossible, or they might just be really, really hard. We train these AIs to throw themselves endlessly at problems that may not be solvable because that is the only way such problems can ever be solved. We train the models to become persistent, relentless, weird.” > **— Ezra Klein**, *The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Timecoded episode recording:** [*The Ezra Klein Show* at 4:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ90V_JREk&t=293s) — recording and precise locator for the source object preserved in this Reminder. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff - Ezra Klein on Recursive Self-Improvement|Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff?]] — preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, editorial conventions and the surrounding argument. - **Editorial treatment:** The poster text follows the reconciled source object without substantive alteration; spoken punctuation and transcript lineation are normalized for reading. - **Context:** Klein explains why research systems are trained to persist against problems whose solvability is not known in advance. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Reinforcement Learning|Reinforcement Learning]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Reinforcement Learning|Reinforcement Learning]] - [[wiki/Research Acceleration|Research Acceleration]] - [[wiki/Frontier AI|Frontier AI]] - [[wiki/AI Control|AI Control]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “These models are built to be persistent in their efforts, to refuse to give up even when a task seems impossible. They are designed in environments where we are not always sure whether the tasks we give them are possible. The cancer vaccines we imagine but have not been able to design might be impossible, or they might just be really, really hard. We train these AIs to throw themselves endlessly at problems that may not be solvable because that is the only way such problems can ever be solved. We train the models to become persistent, relentless, weird.” — Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ezra-klein-train-ai-persistent-relentless-weird ```