listen this week to find out whether we should respond to Chinese influence ops by reforming NEPA, getting Clavicular on WeChat, or a secret third thing

So glad to have Michael, of the best China-watchers around to discuss this report and its implications for US-China Competition.

Really enjoyed this conversation with @timhwang, @jpeaterman and @JoshuaTLevine about @OpenAI’s recent China report!

SITUATION EXPLAINED: Joshua Levine (.@JoshuaTLevine) from @JoinFAI explains the quantum moment and what it might mean for encrypted communications and cryptocurrencies. "I’d say there have been two recent breakthroughs that really stimulated this whole conversation and got the crypto world focused on quantum technologies. One came out of work connected to Caltech, which is now being spun out into a commercial venture. The second came from Google’s quantum unit. What both papers helped clarify was the estimated qubit count, especially the physical-to-logical qubit ratio, which gives us a sense of how large and complex these systems would need to be in order to run algorithms like Shor’s algorithm." "The NSA and NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have already released guidance on post-quantum cryptography migration. Large banks, major financial institutions, and governments likely have the capacity to move into a post-quantum cryptography environment." "The concern is especially acute in the crypto community, and particularly among Bitcoin holders, because Bitcoin is built on distributed ledger technology. It is not centralized by design, so there is no single authority that can simply flip a switch and say, “We’re all migrating now.”"

SITUATION EXPLAINED: Joshua Levine (.@JoshuaTLevine) of @JoinFAI argues that a quantum buildout with onshore supply chains will drive jobs and growth in the US while also addressing the risks of relying on strategic adversaries. "The key issue for quantum is the supply chain behind the machines themselves. That includes things like photonics components, rare earth processing, lithium niobate, helium-3, quantum-grade wafers, and advanced packaging. Some of this should sound familiar, because it overlaps with what we have seen in next-generation chips and chipsets for GPUs, driverless cars, and other modern technologies." "The difference is the purity level required for quantum systems. Traditional semiconductor manufacturing already requires very high purity, but some quantum systems need even more. We are talking about three to four nines of purity. That means the total scale of supply may be smaller than in semiconductor manufacturing, but the quality has to be extremely precise." "Because demand has historically been limited, there are not many suppliers. And many of the existing suppliers are based in adversarial nations, particularly China."

“Catalyzing the Nuclear Renaissance” — @SenatorHagerty and @NRCgov Chairman Ho Nieh talk to @JoinFAI’s @nukebarbarian at the 2026 Energy Imperatives Summit.

smart piece from my colleague @SohamThoughts!

I'm on @MTSlive now talking about Fable 5, virtue ethics, and the Institute for a Christian Machine Intelligence

Watch Chairman Nieh discuss how the NRC is modernizing while maintaining safety in a fireside chat with @SenatorHagerty, moderated by @nukebarbarian at the Energy Imperatives Summit. Watch the full conversation: x.com/i/broadcasts/1yxBeebLN…

1/5: AI safety advocates worry about AI being too anthropomorphic, or about AI having a personality at all. But what if AI having a robust personality is the solution? Post-training requires persona selection, and personality design could be the way safety guidelines actually stick, the way discretion gets operationalized across every conversation. In my latest, I argue that child safety debates should focus on engineering better AI personalities rather than trying to ban them: 🧵

A great example of why I warn that tech is defeating mere philosophy’s ability to acquit humanity of the charges against it. Philosophical “ethics” struggles with deceit, and for that reason people often struggle to trust philosophers. Enter religion… ansible.pub/p/the-best-ai-ha…

It’s one thing to do something great. It’s another thing entirely to get to do it with friends @poastmilque @IsaiahMenning @ACC_National @JoinFAI

My podcast episode (@TheHopeAxis) with @deanwball is now online!!! We covered Dean's journey in politics, his writing, why Beethoven matters for technologists, and much more. Hope you enjoy! youtube.com/watch?v=32DFIcex…

We can’t let politics get in the way of building more energy supply.    Glad to sit down with @ThomasHochman to discuss the FREEDOM Act and unlocking America’s full energy potential.

very strong @nukebarbarian

What crossed the line with Fable's AI research restrictions? @hamandcheese, chief economist at @joinFAI: "This is a private company... they can restrict access however they want. There are no rules about this." "But the thing that really left a bad taste in my mouth is the ways in which they're nerfing the model clandestinely." "It's one thing if your model says, 'Sorry, I can't answer that,' or bumps you down to 4.8, but to use steering vectors and other interventions to actually degrade performance in a way that you can't tell, that has to be trust-harming." "Helen Toner put it exactly right... 'This seems like a bad and trust-damaging move to degrade performance silently rather than handling other topics of concern with a warning box or bumping down to a less capable model.'"

Energy Imperatives 2026: @JoinFAI’s @ppavnr and @ThomasHochman talk to Sen. Joe Manchin about the peril and promise of permitting reform.

Excited to be speaking for the second day of the Energy Imperatives Summit with Conner Prochaska of @ARPAE !

I'll be on to discuss Fable @ 2:30 eastern wearing my best Hawaiian shirt

Why is the US racing to build quantum computers before anyone else? State actors are already collecting encrypted data today, banking records, Signal messages, health data... sitting on servers waiting to be decoded. The question is who gets there first. @JoshuaTLevine, director of technology and statecraft at FAI. "How do we defend against that? It's getting there first." "People wrongly throw AI around being close to an atomic bomb... in terms of the deterrence capability of getting there first, you want the absolute advantage to be able to look at an adversary and say, 'We will break you if you get close to us.'" "The reason Bitcoin holders specifically are concerned... distributed ledger. There is no one to flip the switch and say, 'We're all migrating now.' That will break." "Other chains will probably have a better time with migration... it's maybe not as dire for them. But just with the hold culturally that Bitcoin has over people, and how diffused it is in the market, that's why this is becoming a more live issue today."