A couple of weekends ago, Sarah Polcz, a University of California, Davis, law professor, and her husband, Adam Brown, a top scientist at Google’s DeepMind, hosted a party at their Portola Valley home that had all the trappings of a geeky good time.

One guest piloted a drone that rained down ice cream bars on the kids in attendance. At the swimming pool, people took turns riding on a minihouseboat—the creation of another partygoer, Eric Stackpole, a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Sofar, a startup that sells data analytics about ocean traffic. And since it was June 7, someone else brought along a humanoid robot with a neon sign on its chest that said “6 7,” a nod to a silly internet meme. The robot especially delighted investor Steve Jurvetson, who shared a video of it on X, wishing his 110,000 followers a “happy 6-7.”

Polcz and Brown, who leads DeepMind’s Blueshift team, focused on improving the scientific, mathematical and reasoning capabilities of Google’s AI, are known for throwing memorable events: Sergey Brin once credited a discussion at one of their shindigs for his decision to unretire from Google. And while spirits were generally running high at this latest one, Polcz told me she was feeling a bit apprehensive. Lately, she’d been helping fuel a new policy proposal in Washington that could shift the ground beneath her guests’ feet, and her role in its creation was just starting to become known.