Banning open-source models would be a tragic mistake that hurts America's position in the AI race.
Sax argues that banning open source would backfire badly, that American companies must be able to use everything in the public domain, and that Anthropic's push for a ban is regulatory capture from a company that doesn't need government protection. ✦ AI generated
David Sax · All-In Podcast · 2026-07-24 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 4:00
“Where do you stand Sax? That's what everybody wants to know.”
I think it would be a tragic mistake if the government were to take action against the open source ecosystem. That would do nothing but hurt America's position in this AI race. It would backfire badly. And I think that the key point here is that regardless of what you think about distillation, you cannot punish American developers for it. So, you know, you can't say that American companies and American developers can't use Chinese contributions to the public domain. That's just cutting off our nose to spite our face. I mean, obviously, American companies have to be able to use everything that's in the public domain because the rest of the world will be using those things. And let me just say, I've said for a while that Anthropic is guilty of regulatory capture, of attempts to seek government protection. This is a company that is the fastest growing tech company at scale in history. They started the year at 10 billion of ARR. They're now over 70 billion of ARR. This is not a company that needs government protection. This is not a company that is under threat from competitors or or whether they're Chinese or otherwise. And yet they have been very successful at trying to panic everybody into thinking that they need some sort of government protection. And the tell on this, the way that you know that this whole distillation thing is fake is because if stopping distillation was their primary objective, Anthropic would push to ban Chinese access to American models, not American access to Chinese models.
verbatim transcript · starts at 4:00
3:50where things stand. Um >> where do you stand? Where do you stand Sax? That's what everybody wants to know. >> Yeah, I think it's important for me to make my opinion known in the spirit of again contributing my voice so the president hears all perspectives and then can make the best decision. Look, I think it would be a tragic mistake if the government were to take action
4:10against the open source ecosystem. That would do nothing but hurt America's position in this AI race. It would backfire badly. And I think that the key point here is that regardless of what you think about distillation, you cannot punish American developers for it. So, you know, you can't say that American companies and American developers can't use Chinese contributions to the public domain. That's just cutting off our nose
4:40to spite our face. I mean, obviously, >> American companies have to be able to use everything that's in the public domain because the rest of the world will be using those things. And let me just say, I've said for a while that Anthropic is guilty of regulatory capture, of attempts to seek government protection. This is a company that is the fastest growing tech company at scale in history. They started the year
5:02at 10 billion of ARR. They're now over 70 billion of ARR. This is not a company that needs government protection. This is not a company that is under threat from competitors or or whether they're Chinese or otherwise. And yet they have been very successful at trying to panic everybody into thinking that they need some sort of government protection. And the tell on this, the way that you know
5:24that this whole distillation thing is fake is because if stopping distillation was their primary objective, Anthropic would push to ban Chinese access to American models, not American access to Chinese models. >> Yes, they could. And that is that is achievable. They could block it. So >> they're the ones in the best position to block it. If distillation, if industrial scale distillation is a national security threat, they're the ones who
5:52need to stop it because that is the place where distillation occurs. You have to stop it at the source. Once you allow Chinese companies to distill, the horse is out of the barn. >> Yeah. >> And the reality is that I think that what's happening here is that in their lust for growth, Anthropic has done a very poor job at stopping distillation. I mean they're saying that distillation
6:15is occurring at industrial scale. Okay, if it's industrial scale, it must be pretty obvious to see. So is waves of accounts being created by students rolled up and sold on the dark web, you know, in those kind of channels. So you got people in Manila, in the Philippines, I understand, and India signing up for all those accounts and then sending them to the dark web and selling them using IP addresses from
6:40America. Yeah. So that that's how it occurs. But the more the more industrial scale it is, the more obvious it is to see. And Tamatha has been saying for a while, why don't you KYC your customers? Well, they know that if they KYC their customers, it'll slow their growth. So instead, what they're saying is, hey, ban our competitors. Well, >> that's ridiculous. I mean, they're in the best position to stop the
- ·Banning open-source models is a tragic mistake
- ·It would hurt America's position in the AI race
- ·American developers can't be barred from public domain contributions
- ·Rest of world uses them — banning cuts off our nose to spite face
- ·Anthropic is guilty of regulatory capture
- ·They seek government protection they don't need
- ·The tell: they push to ban US access to Chinese models, not reverse
- ·If stopping distillation were the goal, the ask would be different
- ·Anthropic would push to ban Chinese access to American models
- ·Instead they push to ban American access to Chinese models