Claim◆Video · 3:55 — 4:49

Anthropic's three policy recommendations — restricting chip sales to China, punishing distillation, and requiring regulatory approval for models — would add up to de facto banning or slowing open-weight models, constituting regulatory capture.

While Anthropic publicly says they don't want to ban open-weight models, their three policy proposals — no chip sales to China, anti-distillation rules, and a model approval process — would collectively restrict competition, especially from Chinese open-source models. ✦ AI generated

Rory · 20VC · 2026-07-30 · original ↗

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starts at this moment · 3:55

While in public um anthropic are saying we don't want to ban open weight the truth is the combination of saying we don't want to sell stuff to China chips to China we can argue both sides of that actually second we want to really punish people for distillation right and then the third point they made is we want some kind of regulatory process to approve models right that's the recommended thing from the letter today and there's no doubt in my mind that the third one in particular, can you imagine a regulatory process for approving models that ultimately approves all those Chinese open source models? It is a subtle form of regulatory capture.

verbatim transcript · starts at 3:55

Transcript · around this moment

3:55is real. And while in public um anthropic are saying we don't want to ban open weight the truth is the combination of saying we don't want to sell stuff to China chips to China we can argue both sides of that actually second we want to really punish people for distillation right and then the third point they made is we want some kind of regulatory process to approve models right that's

4:22the recommended thing from the letter today and there's no doubt in my mind that the third one in particular, can you imagine a regulatory process for approving models that ultimately approves all those Chinese open source models? It is a subtle form of regulatory capture. Yeah, sounds reasonable on the surface, but the likely result of it would be dramatically restricted competition, especially from the open open way Chinese models. So, yeah, kind of fast

4:49forwarding to the end and working back. While they're not saying they want to ban these things, they're advocating a series of steps that would add up to de facto banning or at least slowing them down. And that's what's driving everyone else to say, "Hey, no, we don't want this." As often is the case. And that's why I kind of there are some arguments on both sides and some of the issues,

5:10right? I think the chip is you could go either way. And Jensen ain't going to go for the don't sell chips to China argument, right? I think there are national security discussions that could be had around that. So, it's not like it's all correct on one side. Everyone's not piling on to that letter because they're like, "Oh my god, Jensen, you're a god and I want to agree with you."

▦ Anthropic ✳ China ◉ Dario

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Mechanism · 2

Anthropic publicly claims it doesn't want to ban open weights, but its three positions — restricting chip sales to China, punishing distillation, and a government process to approve models — add up to a de facto ban and are a subtle form of regulatory capture; the letter's signers piled on mainly because everyone's business model improves if the two frontier labs can't extract ~$100B of revenue this year.Rory · 20VC · conf 85%Everyone's business model gets a lot better if the two frontier labs can't extract about a hundred billion dollars of revenue this year from their businesses.Jason · 20VC · conf 80%

Evidence · 1

Anthropic's three proposals — no chips to China, punishing distillation, and regulatory pre-approval of models — are a subtle form of regulatory capture that would add up to de facto banning of open-weights Chinese models, and the other companies signed Jensen's letter out of self-interest: everyone's business model gets a lot better if the two frontier labs can't extract about a hundred billion dollars of revenue this year.Rory · 20VC · conf 90%

Context · 1

The more you believe these models are massively dangerous, the more the Anthropic position feels principled.Rory · 20VC · conf 80%

Counterpoint · 1

Anthropic, notably absent from the open-weights letter's signatures, published its own response three days later in which CEO Dario Amodei warned of authoritarian governments building AI models more powerful than those of the US and of models being misused for cyberattacks or biological attacks, called for a crackdown on industrial-scale distillation operations, and stated that Anthropic has never advocated for a ban on open-weights models.the author · Simon Willison's Weblog · conf 80%

This moment responds to

rebuts → Dario's regulatory logic is internally consistent but practically impossible because it requires China to participate in a regulatory regime while simultaneously banning chip sales to them.Rory · 20VC supports → Anthropic has a proven pattern of using fear and scare tactics as a marketing strategy around their product releases, making this Mythos announcement suspect despite having some legitimate basis.David Sacks · All-In Podcast rebuts → Banning or heavily restricting open-weight models in the U.S. would create a dangerous asymmetry, where American closed models carry cybersecurity guardrails but global adversaries still have unrestricted access to capable Chinese open-weight models to probe U.S. defenses.Nathan Lambert · Interconnects