# Michael favors American open-source AI but flags China risks

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/michael-favors-american-open-source-ai-but-flags-china-risks/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Emil Michael](https://realalpha.app/people/emil-michael/)
- Host: [Akash Pasricha](https://realalpha.app/people/akash-pasricha/) · Host, TITV · Led The Information's Pro subscription and co-wrote its flagship newsletter, The Briefing.
- Show: The Information's TITV
- Episode: [The Pentagon’s CTO Explains the Anthropic Rift and Superintelligence Task Force](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/), Oct 16, 2026
- Moment: 1:09:59 to 1:14:13 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/michael-favors-american-open-source-ai-but-flags-china-risks/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4199

## Quote

> “in general, from a business model standpoint, I'm very in favor of open source, **particularly American open source**”
> — [Emil Michael](https://realalpha.app/people/emil-michael/) at [1:10:32](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4232) · The Information's TITV

## Takeaways

1. Open weights can make models more auditable, though auditing needs expertise.
2. Michael prefers American open-source models to Chinese alternatives.
3. He says physical-world capabilities remain harder to assess than coding or math.

## About this segment

Emil Michael backs open source for competition, consumer prices and auditability, especially from American developers. He says the risks of Chinese models depend on how capable they become in real-world domains.

From “The Pentagon’s CTO Explains the Anthropic Rift and Superintelligence Task Force”, Oct 16, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[1:10:03](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4203) So, but he is the master brander. What's your position on open source now? Because I know this has been a major source of debate within the administration, especially on government review of open source, being able to maintain that it's used by companies without too much regulation, But obviously, there's more security risks or different security risks that come in. How do you balance national security risks with maintaining open source potential for companies?

[1:10:31](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4231) And where do you stand on that currently? Well, I think, you know, it's, you know, in general, from a business model standpoint, I'm very in favor of open source, particularly American open source, because I think, you know, it's a democratization of intelligence, if you will. And I think there's some real goodness in that. And I think there's also a level of auditability in it because you're showing your weights, which are sort of the brains of SI.

[1:11:00](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4260) And in theory, people can audit that over time. Maybe people will have – probably industries will have to develop around that to do that effectively. And so I think there's a lot of goodness in that. And then the price benefits to consumers is sort of – is huge, right? So it adds more competition in the marketplace. So from a business model standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from an auditability standpoint, there's a lot of good things in it.

[1:11:27](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4287) I think, you know, the concerns you have, frankly, with Chinese open source becoming dominant in the U.S., I worry about that a little bit because, you know, those companies are subject to the rule of the Chinese government, right? So what do those models look like now? But can you solve that with auditability? Well, I prefer to solve it with American open source like Nemetron, like reflection AI, like thinking machines.

[1:11:56](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4316) But I think, you know, none of these companies yet is at the frontier, right? American companies. So I think, you know, we'll see what happens when they get to the frontier. But the Chinese models that are closer to the frontier, we're also talking about potential kind of long-term threats, either cyber threats or kind of bio and chemical threats, assuming that the people using these models can also acquire those materials.

[1:12:24](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4344) That's really the concern, is that as those Chinese models get better, they don't have built-in safeguards, or they may not have built-in safeguards. What are we going to do about that when individuals anywhere in the world or in the United States can potentially use these things for harm? Yeah, I mean, you're assuming the Chinese government absolutely wants chem bioattacks to happen in their own country or their citizens to be committing them on other countries.

[1:12:48](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4368) So I do think, you know— you you know those safeguards will be built in i i who what i what i don't know is i think a lot This is where you have to be a real technologist to really get deep into, like, how are these models trained on what data? How capable are they at each of these subject matter areas that you're talking about? Cyber and math are relatively easy because they're deterministic, right?

[1:13:16](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4396) There is an answer to a math problem, but there's an answer to making flawless code. Some of these other things are different because they also rely on the physical world a bit in a way that's different. And so how those models develop, I think we're all still learning, right? No one's cured cancer yet. That's been the promise, right? No one's cured the common cold as far as I can tell. So I still think when the models meet the physical world, and that's why there's something called world models that think about that problem set a little differently, at least from a robotic standpoint, I think that'll be a potentially separate thing to look at.

[1:14:00](https://realalpha.app/v/1hXxzkU77iI/?t=4440) um shifting to to kind of the the future of warfare and the the super intelligence era and and also just keeping china in mind i think there's always this this talk about