Thompson rebuts open-source regulation capture theory: AI progress drives both open models and misaligned autonomy

anshulkundaje · x · 2026-09-13

Jason argues frontier labs' regulatory pushes should be read as defensive moves against open-source models eroding their token share, noting the timing aligns with open weights closing the gap and Nvidia going all-in on open source.
Economist DKThomp calls the argument "flatly wrong": Anthropic didn't suddenly discover AI safety three days ago; a third variable — AI progress — drives both better open-weight models and greater unaligned autonomy, which is what genuinely frightens people closest to the fire.
He critiques the Wharton-brain framing that treats any safety effort as regulatory capture, urging readers to take RSI-related fears seriously.

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