Banning open-weight models will hurt US AI competitiveness while increasing long-term cyber risk
“I feel we're going to end up making policy decisions that both limit American AI competitiveness and increases long-term cyber risk.”
Nathan Lambert
24 tracked signals
What Nathan has said
Epoch AI's JS Denain and Nathan Lambert debate recursive self-improvement timelines and the narrowing US-China AI capability gap.
“A big takeaway of this podcast is how JS and I both have so much uncertainty with exactly where we are heading”
Chinese open-weight models like GLM-5.2 and Kimi K3 have surpassed American ones and reached commercial agentic viability.
“Since about April 2025, Chinese AI companies have been the clear leader in open-weight models.”
Lambert argues true recursive self-improvement won't arrive soon; current AI-safety anxiety reflects scaled agents, not imminent superintelligence.
“they’ll turn out to be directionally correct (relative to the expectations of almost anyone not linked to the community) but factually wrong.”
AI fear discourse has intensified following a resignation by a prominent researcher.
“Fear is the simplest story, the one people cannot look away from.”
AI's impact remains minimal in everyday life despite ongoing advancements.
“It’s a remarkable breath of fresh air to pop out of the bubble and realize how little what is happening really matters today.”
Open model licenses are evolving with new restrictions and competitive shifts.
“If the Licensee or any of its affiliates operates a Model as a Service business, and the aggregate revenue of the Licensee and its affiliates exceeds 10 billion US dollars...”
Nvidia's $26B open-source AI bet creates existential dependency for the entire ecosystem
“Nvidia wants a world where countless people can build token machines, so intelligence is not monopolized.”
Z.ai's GLM-5.3 surpasses Claude Fable 5 and GPT-5.6-Sol on select benchmarks
“On many benchmarks the model has surpassed Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 and on some it's surpassed Claude Fable 5 or GPT-5.6-Sol.”
Nathan Lambert publishes definitive RLHF post-training textbook, free online with 12-hour course
“This is the book I wanted to read when I was getting started a few years ago!”
Interconnects launches Artifacts Hub and Adoption Dashboard to track open model ecosystem adoption
“We're sharing them freely to help the open ecosystem find its strengths and grow.”
AI lab consolidation hasn't materialized; open models are proliferating as token demand surges
“building token machines is a likely path to value, and more companies will identify that source of value over time”
China commits to AI openness as Xi's WAIC speech and Qwen's open-weight pivot signal strategic shift
“Xi gave his speech where he directly committed to openness and open source as a strategy.”
Kimi K3 is the strongest open-weights model ever, closing the US-China gap to 3-5 months
“the open-to-closed or American-to-Chinese model performance gap has been reduced from the debated 6-9 months to something shorter, say 3-5 months.”
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The open model ecosystem is diversifying globally, with more orgs like Zyphra, Cohere, and Poolside releasing models beyond the early Chinese-dominated landscape.
“Attempts to slow or ban this ecosystem are not only futile, as the history of tech-related bans has shown, but also unsafe and anti-freedom.”
Z.ai's open-weight GLM-5.2 marks a step-change for open agentic models, rivaling top labs.
“minor version numbers can have AI models crossing meaningful user experience thresholds”
Nathan Lambert keeps Interconnects intentionally raw and independent, disclosing new advising roles at Arcee AI and Mercor.
“Interconnects is the tip of the spear of all of my missions in AI.”
2026 frontier post-training has shifted to Multi-Teacher On-Policy Distillation (MOPD), merging many specialist models into one.
“The shape of a post-training recipe has changed more in the last year than in the prior three.”
The U.S. government forced Anthropic to suspend foreign access to its Claude Fable/Mythos models, opening a new AI governance era.
“The executive branch of the United States forcing Anthropic to turn off access — both internally and externally — to their latest Claude 5 Mythos/Fable models is the starting gun of a new era in AI governance.”
Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, its smartest public model, paired with uneven heavy-handed safety controls.
“Claude Fable 5 is definitely the smartest model available to the general public”
Nathan Lambert is departing Ai2 to work on better-coordinating the open AI ecosystem.
“AI needs independent voices as it only becomes more geopolitical, socially disruptive, and central to the economy.”
Closed AI models will keep commanding premium margins as coding agents prove users pay more for top intelligence.
“I would pay $2000/month for the tools today, especially knowing they’ll get much better.”
Open models and even Google lack a true competitor to Claude Code and Codex for agentic work.
“even the mighty Google doesn't have a clear competitor for Claude Code and Codex”