I'm disappointed | Matthew Berman

The Gist

Matthew Berman is deeply disappointed by Anthropic's hypocritical anti-open-source lobbying and misleading safety claims. Ultimately, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly insists they do not want to ban open weights models, yet constantly frames open source as a catastrophic national security and cyber risk.

Quick Overview

Matthew Berman breaks down the intense ideological battle over open source AI models versus closed source companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. Despite public denials from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, the company constantly lobbies against open weights by claiming they present uncontrollable safety hazards and cybersecurity threats. Berman demonstrates why these safety arguments fail, how open source actually enhances security through transparency, and why economic incentives and data distillation make open source a vital counterweight to tech monopolies.

Key Points: Jensen Huang and Nvidia published an open letter signed by dozens of tech companies supporting open source artificial intelligence models. Anthropic was the sole major AI company that refused to sign Nvidia's pro-open-source letter, while simultaneously running media campaigns against open source safety. The artificial analysis index shows open source models like Kimi K3 ranking right behind top proprietary closed models like Claude and ChatGPT. Nvidia recently launched the Open Secure Alliance alongside companies like Microsoft, Palantir, and Cloudflare to build cybersecurity tools for open source agents. Dario Amodei published an essay on July 27, 2026, explicitly stating that Anthropic has never advocated for a ban on open weights models. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on July 22, 2026, warning that foreign actors conducting industrial-scale distillation attacks on American IP will face sanctions. Anthropic recently settled a massive billion-dollar-plus fine because their models scraped copyrighted books without permission.

Context: The artificial intelligence industry is deeply split between closed source labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, which treat models as proprietary commercial products, and open source ecosystems championed by companies like Nvidia, Meta, and various international labs. This ideological schism has erupted into high-stakes political lobbying, national security debates, and public clashes over safety regulations.