Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon became a media superstar after going public with his AI fears. He insisted that he wasn’t working with any third party organizations. Familiar sources told us a different story: DEY., a PR firm representing many of the most prominent AI safetyists, was booking his interviews. One source, who had direct knowledge, even said DEY. preemptively booked Nate Soares, a prominent AI safety figure, for interviews that directly overlapped with Jacob going public. Jacob working with DEY. is notable for two reasons: first, as mentioned, he previously said he wasn’t working with third parties. Second, we are in the middle of a national conversation about the future of AI that is actively determining how we regulate the most powerful technology in the world, largely thanks to the panic stirred up by Jacob — and it’s in the public’s interest to know who, exactly, is behind it. Scoop from @huntryerson 👇

It's Over.. The AI Apocalypse Is Here Welcome back to the pod! @BridgetPhetasy returns to the Pirate Wires podcast as one of our esteemed cohosts. This past week, the internet was consumed by AI doomerism. The tech people are supporting AI at all costs, the doomers are making their opinions heard, and we at Pirate Wires.. are unsure. We dive into all of the discourse, how Peter Thiel predicted the AI antichrist, the white pill of AI, and we even get into Sydney Sweeney's controversial boobs. We have it all! Thanks to our presenting sponsor @MonacoGTM Timestamps: 0:00 - Welcome Back To The Pod - Welcome Back Bridget Phetasy! 0:30 - The AI Apocypse - Is It All Over? 24:35 - THANK YOU @MonacoGTM 25:33 - Breaking Down The AI Discourse 40:00 - Did Peter Thiel Predict The AI Antichrist?! 50:05 - Sydney Sweeney's Controversial Boobs 10:40 - White Pill - How AI Leads To More Creativity - PW Writer Vibe Coded A Viral Video Game 21:40 - THANK YOU @eightsleep 1:22:20 - AirBnB Wants To Fix The Housing Crises 1:32:15 - THANK YOU @joinautopilot 1:32:55 - Wrapping Up - Go See Bridget Live in Austin!

As one industry insider put it to us: “From what I can tell, frontier labs were using agent models that purposely had no guardrails, they were using a misconfigured sandbox, then the no-guardrails agents broke out of the misconfigured sandbox, so now we need to slow down everyone’s development with the people who owned the no-guardrails agent and the misconfigured sandbox permanently frozen in first place. Do I understand this correctly.”

The American energy industry is on the verge of calamity. For the last 20 years, energy growth has flatlined while hundreds of power plants were retired. Power bills are up 29% since 2019. In July, the Department of Energy declared a “power emergency” for 67 million people. America almost solved this problem 50 years ago: via nuclear power. Then, in pursuit of maximum safetyism, we choked it off. The Department of Energy’s @SecretaryWright told us, “the nuclear industry started out with a bang, got smothered by the government… and now has been bottled up and pushed away.” One industry insider said: “You weren’t allowed to say the word ‘nuclear’ in the Biden administration for the first few years.” Now, thanks to the efforts of less than 40 government employees — and an historic collaboration between career civil servants and DOGE — we’re turning the tide. On July 4th, four companies took nuclear reactor designs “critical” (i.e., tested them), setting us on a path toward a nuclear renaissance. Here, the exclusive story of how this happened, featuring interviews with Energy Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright), Adam Blake (@adamblake), Seth Cohen (@OverReactor1776), Rian Bahran at the Department of Energy, and Stephen Miller’s deputy, Emily Underwood (@emundz42). It may take time to notice the effects in your power bill. But the decades of stagnation, fear, and absurd overregulation that have plagued nuclear for the last half-century are now (thankfully) over. Full story from @eventidia 👇

WE'RE BACK | From 9/11 To Lindsay Clancy - How The Internet Has Gone INSANE Welcome back to the Pirate Wires pod! The gang is back together for your favorite weekly pod covering tech, politics & culture. PW alum, Sanjana Friedman, returns to the show with Mike Solana in Riley Nork. Today on the pod, 25th anniversary of 9/11 and how the old world feels so ancient, the brain rot phone addiction that led to the decision of the Lindsay Clancy case, another AI doomer has sprung to life from the the bowels of Anthropic, we ponder if we're all in a simulation, and Solana gives us a deep dive into immigration and H1B's. Thank you to our PRESENTING sponsor Monaco! @MonacoGTM 0:00 - WE'RE BACK! 2:55 - 9/11 25th Anniversary & Gen Z Irony Posting 8:50 - THANK YOU MONACO! 9:25 - Lindsay Clancy Trial Highlights Phone Addiction Brain Rot 40:45 - AI Death Cult - Anthropic Employee Warns Of AI Doom 1:06:46 - White Pill - Are We In A Simulation - Sponsored By Eight Sleep 1:12:25 - THANK YOU EIGHT SLEEP! 1:13:08 - The Truth About Immigration & H1Bs - Sponsored By Autopilot 1:31:00 - THANK YOU AUTOPILOT 1:32:00 - Wrapping Up 1:34:00 - We're Back For Good! See You Every Friday at 5:30pmET

When the FCC approved Starlink’s second-gen satellites, environmental groups took the agency to court, alleging “diminishment in the enjoyment of the dark sky.” When Starlink wanted to lower its satellites, a competitor made bogus claims about space debris. No more. Now, the FCC is ending this kind of NIMBYism by eliminating its environmental reviews for space tech. Full story from @JonasYDu 👇

Over the last few decades, America forgot how to make things. By the time Cameron Schiller (@cameron62s), founder of Rangeview, entered adulthood, our factory towns had given way to the Rust Belt, and 22-year-olds could make “$200,000 right out of school to more effectively steal someone’s attention by being a TikTok programmer.” Enter: Rangeview. After coming to the conclusion that America’s manufacturing was basically “hosed,” and seeing how critical it is to national security, Cameron started a company to make small metal parts for (at the moment) AI data centers, drone interceptors, and energy plants. Rangeview is now partnering with the US Navy, in a rumored eight-figure contract, to produce parts for defense. It has plans for a megasite, staffed by 1,300 small-town Americans. Where others simply see industrialization, Cameron sees the world he wants to build for his future kids: “If all you do is shuffle papers and change numbers in an Excel sheet, what connection do you feel to your neighbor? What responsibility do you feel to your country? People that can feel the product of their labor have a different sense of pride.” “Steve Jobs talked about this a lot, but everyone prioritized serving a few more ads.” Full story on the fight to make America actually build physical things again, via @richdewey 👇

Earlier this summer, @spencerpratt alleged that rampant animal abuse was occurring on Skid Row. At the time, an LAPD lieutenant said the claim “[lacked] credible evidence,” and a former councilman accused Spencer of propagating a “dramatic fabrication.” We went there in person. Here’s what we saw: • A pug being kept in a green painter’s bucket. When his owner lifted him out, we realized one of his hind legs was bent at an abrupt right angle — the result of being hit by a car. • A 54-year-old drug addict who told us she gives her dog Narcan. • A black chihuahua getting run over by a wheelchair. • A woman attempting to steal a $1,500 stroller from nonprofit workers. • A group of people illegally breeding a pitbull underneath a car. • A shirtless man dancing down Skid Row with a knife in his hand. • A man outside of the Weingart Center (Skid Row’s largest publicly funded housing services provider) with his pubic hair out, carrying a kitten he’d just stepped on. • A dog breeder hiding a litter of puppies in a cardboard box (she refused to name them because she was intent on selling them as soon as possible). • A man in a black trenchcoat attempting to steal from other homeless people while sporting a $10,000 Rolex watch. We also heard about a dog named Nitro, whose owner lived in the Weingart Center. The dog was recently unable to eat or drink because of a growth in his mouth. Weingart, which advertises veterinary services, did nothing. Nitro passed away as a result, we were told. When we reported our findings to @MayorOfLA, her office did not reply. Below, a look into the hell that is Skid Row, propped up by millions of dollars in taxpayer money and private philanthropy, from @nicolewizman1 and @huntryerson 👇

Brad Gerstner (@altcap) on how he built Trump Accounts — a new program that gives every American baby a $1k investment account seeded by the U.S. Treasury: “I didn’t hire any lawyers. I didn’t hire any lobbyists. I didn’t have somebody else go do the work for me. I showed up in Washington and I spent over 1,000 hours of my life over the last five years relentlessly building a coalition and a product to win.” The inside story of how one VC took a dinner-table idea (proposed by his teenage son) all the way to the Oval Office… and into federal law. @eventidia reports 👇

DC is a city filled with sclerotic barriers preventing anything from getting done. So why was @altcap able to get Trump Accounts done? Well, it turns out it’s a lot easier to go founder mode when this White house is “run by somebody who acts like a CEO.”