Anthropic's Fable gets classified as a munitions export days after launch, and Jacob and Igor try to figure out who's really being punished and why. From there: SpaceX's suspiciously well-timed IPO, a "genius" financial deal with Anthropic, and Elon buying Cursor because Grok needs friends. They also cover Anthropic Core's pivot to expert-systems consulting, the backlash over silently nerfed guardrails, whether Chinese models are actually a safe alternative, and why the Pope's new AI document is getting weaponized as corporate propaganda.

Chapters

• (00:00) - Intro
• (05:37) - Fable/Mythos Updates
• (26:17) - SpaceX's IPO and the Cursor Buyout
• (34:57) - Anatomy of an AI Bubble
• (40:02) - Anthropic Core and "AI as Expert Systems"
• (50:03) - Guardrails, Chinese Models, and Whether We Can Trust the Benchmarks

• Anthropic statement - Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5
• Luta Security blog post - Fable 5 Is Back, But We're Still Slowing Down Defenders
• Tech Policy Press analysis - Did the US Government Just Set an AI Export Precedent by Blocking Mythos?
• SEC EDGAR filing - SpaceX Free Writing Prospectus — Anthropic and Google compute agreements
• Engadget article - Anthropic Backtracks on Policy That 'Sabotaged' Researchers' Work
• Anthropic announcement - Introducing Claude Corps
• The Vatican encyclical - Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence

This week, Jacob and Igor swap the usual news breakdown for a complete taxonomy of AI boosters within the framing of a tier list. They run through every type, from the good-faith genuine enthusiast to the denial-prone deflector, the financially captured, corporate power-players, platform builders, and finally the model-building true believers. They also get into "crit-hype," the idea that some critics are inadvertently boosting the systems they're fighting against. No muck to separate this week, just the guys working through their framework and explaining why their opinions are S tier.

Chapters

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (02:45) - Introducing the Booster Tier List
• (07:48) - A-Tier: The Genuine Enthusiast
• (11:36) - B-Tier: The Denial-Prone Booster
• (14:34) - C-Tier: The Financially Adjacent Booster
• (19:03) - D-Tier: The Corporate Booster
• (23:31) - E-Tier: The Product and Platform Booster
• (26:36) - F-Tier: The Model Builders
• (31:08) - Bonus Tier: Crit Hype
• (39:28) - So What Do We Actually Do With This?
• (46:04) - Outro (Igor's Challenge)

• Ed Zitron Substack article - How to Argue with an AI Booster
• MIT Technology Review article - How Social Media Encourages the Worst of AI Boosterism
• The Telegraph article - AI isn’t magic. We’re just being taken for mugs

In this episode, Jacob and Igor break down the DoD vs. Anthropic standoff, tracing how Claude's use in military operations led to Anthropic being designated a supply chain security risk. Perhaps more importantly, why did Anthropic choose to take a stand now, and what can that tell us about the corporations behavior moving forward. The investigation is used as a case study in how to read the real motivations behind big institutions: intrinsic values, rational self-interest, and realpolitik.

Chapters

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (00:44) - DoD-Anthropic Standoff
• (15:08) - 3 Buckets of Motivation
• (35:39) - How to Read What They're Actually Doing
• (44:04) - Is This Designation Even Real?
• (53:39) - Recap (Pragmatist's Playbook)

• Ed Zitron subtack article - The AI Bubble Is An Information War
• TechPolicy.Press article - A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
• TechPolicy.Press podcast episode - How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
• BBC news article - Anthropic vows to sue Pentagon over supply chain risk label
• The Guardian article - AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying
• Palantir YouTube video - Multi-Domain AI: The Future of Command and Control
• Into AI Safety podcast episode - Drawing Red Lines w/ Su Cizem