Brad Carson

"In a mindless age, every insight takes on the character of a lethal weapon." - M. McLuhan to E. Pound, letter, 1951.

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Excellent article on a very important issue. Look forward to the series.

NBC News: A new indictment alleges that three men affiliated with server maker Supermicro conspired to sell $510 million in servers with banned Nvidia chips to China. Story: nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…

DOJ issued a truly stunning indictment today, unveiling a massive AI chip smuggling operation to China--led by Wally Liaw, the Co-Founder, Board Member, and Senior Vice President of Supermicro, a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest U.S. AI server manufacturers. The operation smuggled over $2.5 billion worth of chips to China, including Hopper and Blackwell chips. It is unsurprising that China would seek to illegally obtain U.S. chips, given how much better they are than Chinese chips. But it is appalling that leadership figures in major U.S. semiconductor companies would actively enable Chinese efforts to obtain banned AI chips. Many U.S. companies have long denied that chip smuggling to China is happening. And now we know that it is not just happening, but it is pervasive--and individuals high up in some of the most important companies in the AI supply chain were actively supporting those smuggling operations. Policy changes are urgently needed to close loopholes in AI chip export controls and stop Chinese smuggling. First, we need to know where these chips are going: all AI chip exports to Southeast Asia (the nexus of Chinese smuggling operations, including this operation), and potentially globally, must require a U.S. export license. Second, Chinese companies inside the United States should not be allowed to purchase AI chips. It is absurd that the only country in which Chinese companies can buy AI chips is the United States itself, a loophole that DOJ has highlighted in past indictments that Chinese smugglers routinely exploit. And third, much tighter compliance measures are needed by U.S. companies. U.S. companies have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to self-police. Companies must have stricter end-use reporting requirements, and/or face stricter liability. Export control enforcement must become more like financial sanctions enforcement if it is to be effective. justice.gov/opa/pr/three-c…

Great job by OpenAI to do and publish this research! Keeping a watch on internal AI use is one of the most important safeguards against catastrophes

I'm quoted in this piece so let me provide my full comment to the reporter: The most striking thing about the government's filing are the things it *doesn't* mention. It doesn't mention anything about Anthropic hesitating to allow Claude to be used to defend an incoming hypersonic missile, for instance -- one of the many bizarre things alleged by @USWREMichael. The focus on foreign national employees is an indicator of how thin the DoW's case is. It is also an extremely fraught line of argument to go down. Every leading US AI company employs a substantial number of foreign nationals. In FY 2025, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Intel, and IBM all appeared in the top 50 employers by number of granted H-1B visas, ranging from a few hundred to over 6,000. Meta alone had 5,123 approved H-1B petitions in 2025. (See: newsweek.com/h-1b-visas-imm… ) This is an undercount, of course, as there are many other visa pathways as well as greencard holders and dual nationals. The share is also higher in AI. A large plurality of the core research and engineering talent at every frontier AI lab is foreign, reflecting the global nature of the race for top AI talent. One talent tracker shows Chinese-origin researchers constitute roughly 40% of top AI talent at US institutions. Total foreign nationals likely constituting 50-65% of research teams specifically. This is certaintly true to my experience on the ground. (See: digitalprojectsarchive.org/interactive/di… ) So the first point is that employing foreign nationals, including Chinese nationals, is not unique to Anthropic. The more important question is what measures are taken to protect against insider threats. Ironically, within the industry Anthropic is widely considered to be the most serious and proactive about policing insider threats from foreign nationals and otherwise. They were early adopters of operational security techniques like compartmentalization and audit trails, in part because they were early to partner with the IC and DoW, but also as a reflection of their leadership's strong convictions about the future power of the technology. They were audited last year on these points: the compliance review found Anthropic employs role-based access control, just-in-time access with approval workflows, multi-factor authentication for all production systems, and quarterly access reviews. (See: tdcommons.org/cgi/viewconten… ) Anthropic is known for its security mindset more generally. Last year they famously disrupted a Chinese espionage effort occuring on their platform, banned the PRC from their services, and worked with the NSA and others to share intel. I can't speak to every other company, but the contrast is perhaps most stark with xAI. X employees famously slept in tents to work around the clock, are disproportionately Chinese, and have at least one case of an employee walking out with tons of sensitive data. See: sfstandard.com/2025/08/29/xai… Anthropic is also famous for its remarkable employee retention, which is another important vector for IP theft and security leakages. It's important to underscore just how precarious the DoW's case is, both on the legal merits, and as a potential precedent for the US AI industry. If employing foreign nationals is treated as a prima facie supply chain risk, *no* major US AI company would be eligible to contract with the DoW, along with most of the tech sector. Insider threats are a genuine and tricky concern. Many defense companies are ITAR restricted, meaning they can *only* hire US citizens. If that were the standard in AI, we would destroy all our frontier companies in an instant, and then scatter that talent around the world for our adversaries to scoop up. So in short, the DoW's argument is both ridiculous and playing with fire.

The full article: wsj.com/politics/polic…

Fair article in the @wsj from @AmrithRamkumar on the @AlexBores NY-12 race, which Public First is involved in supporting Bores. This quote is right: the $2MM attack ads from LTF have only helped Bores, elevating him in a crowded field. As said here:

@AdamThierer attacking @MarshaBlackburn after her bill comes out is a huge endorsement. He and RSI are paid pawns of the tech lobby and no rules libertarians. Sen Blackburn’s bill is a combination of bills that all have strong bipartisan support and majority Republican. This means it’s the only approach that can make it through the Senate without procedural games or tying it to unrelated things like War Funding. The reason the other side resorts to these games and tricks is because what they are proposing is SO unpopular. The approach of the tech amnesty apologists like Adam, Neil, @abundanceinst, and paid legal and policy shills is to shut down bills that protect kids from grooming chatbots, unlimited porn access, and addictive use because their funders profit from human weakness and suffering. They are not what our Founding Fathers had in mind with Freedom. They would all be rolling over in their graves watching them call corruption and harms to families “freedom.” You forgot the truth- that the market supports and requires a sound and moral society because without human dignity being respected there can be no trust. Without trust there is no market. The market is your God and it’s really about supporting those with power and money- not what is right, true or thoughtful. We don’t need to be governed by Nietzschean libertarian philosophy with no introspection or empathy. That’s not conservative. It’s not MAGA. It’s not even close to what Trump ran on or where his voters are.

I secured on-the-record commitments from two of our top generals that they will not use AI for domestic surveillance. I'll be holding them to it.

I disagree myself with most of @kevintfrazier analysis here, but worth reading (as always of his work). That said, his proposal to deal with AI-encouraged child suicide not by safe design but by an "AI literacy" campaign is certain to rightfully outrage.

We are reaching new levels of did not spend five seconds thinking of the implications of arguments. Who do they think works for OpenAi? Google? Nvidia? TSMC? Everyone else? I do need good laughs these days.

Well it’s certainly not going to happen if we don’t organize against the alternative: AI Panopticon Feudalism

No not ok

@eachus @Theloveiswhere @MarshaBlackburn @POTUS On this one, I'm 100 pc in agreeement. Citizens United will go down as one of the great disasters in SCOTUS history. Our democracy might not survive it.

@bradrcarson @Theloveiswhere @MarshaBlackburn @POTUS Corporations are regulated by government in ways that would never be accepted for citizens. E.g., commercial speech is regulated in a number of different ways. And so on. They are NOT "people".

Reading @MarshaBlackburn new TRUMP AI Act, introduced today at request of @POTUS. It's a long (300 pp), comprehensive bill; an outline of the bill was released in December. One note: it has a full repeal of Section 230. Full stop.

@eachus @Theloveiswhere @MarshaBlackburn @POTUS No argument from me on that. Justice Thomas has given lonely support for platforms as common carriers. I'm sympathetic. But seems like rest of Court not interested.

@bradrcarson @Theloveiswhere @MarshaBlackburn @POTUS the worst decisions SCOTUS ever made.

Finally, a new benchmark: the LA Purchase!

You killed the moderate (Kantian Philosopher) now you get the radical (PhD in Supply Chain Logistics)

I love the style of X. But the conservative justices of the Court have made clear that these platforms are private actors and can do what they want. In some ways the new X proves their case: there are competitors in Truth Social, Bluesky, Mastodon that offer different perspectives. 1A lets them do their thing. The key point is content moderation - heavy or light - is constitutionally protected. To be clear: this is just a description of current law, not my personal preference.

@bradrcarson @Theloveiswhere @MarshaBlackburn @POTUS We have actually experienced where it does infringe on freedom of speech, though. Right here on Twitter, before Elon bought 51%. And there were no equivalent platforms to move to.

A very important document, esp. as rumor says the new AI preemption framework from the WH might have "voluntary commitments."