The Moonshot - by Anton Leicht - Threading the Needle

Real sovereign AI has never been tried

This weekend, the U.S. government shut down Fable 5, the leading frontier AI model. The administration was motivated by domestic cybersecurity reasons, but chose export controls as an instrument to force this shutdown: it was the sharpest sword available to it on short notice. The effects on U.S. allies—fear, disorientation, alienation—were not only not the goal, but weren’t even seriously considered. In 2026’s AI policy, the rest of the world is so powerless that it can be cut off from frontier AI as mere collateral damage of domestic U.S. policy.1 Some international attempts to protest or…

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• Oscar Marret

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