Jeferson argues AI firms sell doom to build regulatory moat

The author argues that leading AI companies intentionally cultivate a narrative of existential doom as a marketing and regulatory strategy to inflate their valuations and establish a regulatory moat. According to the piece, this manufactured fear drives political pressure for licensing and compliance rules that protect incumbents from competitors. The author contends that the only defense against this monopolization is open weights and open code, arguing that the models' foundational reliance on scraped data necessitates that the resulting technology be shared with the public commons. Open article →