thekb.eu — Policy & Regulation

Anthropic's War on Opensource AI

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In this long X thread (1.7M views), Ahmad Osman lays out an indictment of Anthropic, accused of waging a "war on open source AI." His thesis: behind the image of the "responsible lab, the adult in the room," Anthropic wraps a business model in moral language to justify behavioral opacity, anti-competitive access rules, and regulatory pressure, in order to keep builders, startups, researchers, and open source communities **downstream** of a handful of frontier labs. The core of the argument: Anthropic sells "cognition as infrastructure," such that its access control ceases to be an ordinary vendor dispute and becomes a **social chokepoint**. The centerpiece is the **Fable incident**: Anthropic allegedly could initially **silently degrade or reroute** requests resembling competing AI development ("Gaslighting as a Safety Mechanism"), before walking it back by making the intervention visible (refusals, fallback to Opus 4.8). For Osman, this walk-back solves nothing: it shifts from hidden sabotage to **visible permissioning**. His distinction: "a refusal is annoying; silent degradation is poisonous." He points to a structuring **asymmetry** — "Anthropic can learn from the world; the world cannot freely learn from Anthropic" — written into the ToS (a ban on training "competing systems" without authorization) and into the consumer terms (opt-in to training, 5-year retention). He develops a **"permanent underclass" thesis** of intelligence, denounces the **distillation panic** (campaigns attributed to DeepSeek/Moonshot/MiniMax in Feb. 2026) broadened into a national security argument, and the **xenophobic trap** of the "Chinese model" label even as Qwen, DeepSeek, Kimi, and Zhipu pushed open source to the frontier in 2025. Next comes the **pause agenda** (Dario Amodei, ABC interview, June 11, 2026: stricter regulation, "I don't trust China at all") and the **regulatory capture machine** (FLOPs/revenue thresholds, audits, the RSP claimed to have influenced SB 53, the RAISE Act, and the EU AI Act). He reads **Claude's Constitution** as a root permission layer ("Claude is Anthropic's agent, rented to you") and **Claude Code** as a "behavioral funnel" locking in dev workflows. Osman acknowledges the reality of the risks (CBRN, cyber, weight theft) but argues that Anthropic's response systematically makes it more powerful. His counter-proposal: open source and local AI as the "only viable political economy of intelligence" — "Buy a GPU" as exit power, funding Western open labs, regulating harmful uses rather than openness itself. Closing line: "the alternative is obedience."

LVMH × Scaleway sur VivaTech : géopolitique de la tech, autonomie européenne et cloud hybride régionalisé (entretien République)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In this interview filmed at the Scaleway booth at VivaTech (République media), journalist Bertrand hosts **Damien Lucas** (CEO of Scaleway) and **Franck Le Moal** (Global Technical Officer of LVMH) to formalize and explain their **cloud partnership**. Damien Lucas defines Scaleway as a **modern European cloud provider**, **immune to extraterritorial laws** and **technologically independent**: it protects data against any exploitation by third-party authorities without a court decision, and against the existence of a **"kill switch"** — a risk that the weekend's news makes "not entirely science fiction." Franck Le Moal recalls LVMH's scale (≈ €80bn in revenue, 75 maisons, 100+ countries) and sets out the framework: the emergence of a **"tech geopolitics"** (a powerful United States, an increasingly closed China regulating to force localization, an awakening Europe) compels multinationals to regionalize their information systems. In his view, *"the days when you could work with a single global solution are over"*: it is necessary to manage **three visions** (American, European, Chinese) and distribute application partners across these blocs. LVMH describes itself as **hybrid** and **autonomous** rather than **sovereign** (a word it rejects as ambiguous), while embracing French pride (a reference to Bernard Arnault) and the **responsibility** of contributing to the European ecosystem. The group's cloud map is explicitly multicloud: **Google Cloud** (data, since 2021, across all maisons), **Alibaba Cloud** + Huawei + Tencent in China (~25 maisons), **SAP** (finance, supply, manufacturing), Salesforce, and now **Scaleway** as the European building block. On Scaleway, LVMH will place **potentially sensitive data**, European **e-commerce workloads**, and its **cybersecurity solutions**. The choice rests on a **genuine hyperscaler/public cloud approach**, high-performing **IaaS/PaaS** services, **agility**, and **responsiveness** (co-development). PoCs completed, deployment underway at **Sephora** and **Louis Vuitton**; a significant footprint is expected **within 12-18 months**. Damien Lucas observes a **market shift toward Europe that is accelerating**, driven by data criticality, fear of the kill switch, and economics — illustrated by the **trickle-down effect** (*€1 with Scaleway = 68 cents stay in Europe* vs < 20 cents with a US hyperscaler) and by public references (European Commission, Health Data Hub). Scaleway claims a **mission focused on IaaS/PaaS** (no verticalization), at the heart of a partner ecosystem (sovereign applications, European chipsets and servers). On the **AI/Nvidia GPU** side, LVMH has no short-term plans but remains open to **open source models** to combine autonomy and economic performance in a "totally unpredictable" world.

Lettre encyclique MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS du Saint-Père LÉON XIV sur la protection de la personne humaine à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

First social encyclical of **Pope Léon XIV** (Robert Francis Prevost), dated **15 May 2026** (Rome, near St. Peter's, 2nd year of the Pontificate), published for the **135th anniversary of *Rerum Novarum*** (Léon XIII, 15 May 1891) and explicitly presented as a **continuation of the Church's Social Doctrine into the AI era**. Canonical subtitle: *"on the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence"*. **245 paragraphs**, structured as **Introduction + 5 chapters + Conclusion**. **Pivotal thesis** organized around two **biblical icons**: the **Tower of Babel** (Gen 11) — technological uniformity without God, *"absolutization of the human"* — versus **Nehemiah's reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem** (Neh 2-6) — shared responsibility stone by stone, listening, coordination among families. *"The first choice is not between a 'yes' or a 'no' to technology, but between building Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem"* (n. 9). **Canonical concepts**: (1) **AI "cultivated" rather than "constructed"** — *"developers do not directly design every detail, but create an architecture on which the AI develops"* (n. 98), a remarkable theological formulation that echoes recent ML-research vocabulary; (2) ***"Disarming AI"*** (n. 110) — *"removing it from the logic of armed competition, which today is no longer only military but also economic and cognitive"*, making AI *"habitable, by restoring it to the plurality of human cultures"*; (3) **Radical critique of "alignment"** — *"We cannot content ourselves with invoking the moralization of the machine, what is called the 'alignment' of AI with human values, without having the courage to add a further condition: the possibility of debating the ethical code to be used"* (n. 107). ***"A more moral AI is useless if that morality is decided by a handful of people."*** (4) **Epistemic asymmetry** and **new AI monopolies** (n. 109) — *"in a world where a few actors concentrate data, computing resources and regulatory power"*; (5) **Invisible labor** of data labelers/moderators/rare-earth extractors (n. 109, 173) — *"bodies marked, mutilated, used so that the flow of computation never stops"*; (6) **Data colonialism** (n. 178) — *"it dominates not only bodies, but appropriates data"*, *"new rare earths of power"*; (7) **AI and war** (n. 197-200) — *"No algorithm capable of making war morally acceptable"* (n. 198), three criteria: traceable personal responsibility, refusal to shorten the time for moral judgment, protection of civilians; (8) **Critique of transhumanism/posthumanism** (n. 115-117) as *"an archipelago of conceptual islands linked by the same ocean of assumptions: the centrality of technique and the dream of surpassing the limits of the human condition"*; (9) **Work in the transition** (n. 150-156) — *"contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically deskill workers, subject them to automated surveillance"*, access to work as a public priority, anticipation of the transformation, setting social criteria for innovation; (10) **Canonical question drawn from John Paul II** (Redemptor hominis 1979): ***"does AI make human life on earth 'more human' in every respect? Does it make it more 'worthy of man'?"*** (n. 129); (11) **Authentic "more than human"**: not transhumanism, but grace — *"we manage to be fully human when we are more than human, when we allow God to lead us beyond ourselves"* (n. 128, citing Francis, *Evangelii gaudium*); (12) **Disarming words** (n. 214) — *"Let us disarm words and we will help disarm the Earth"*. **Addressees**: *"To all Catholic faithful, to all Christians, to all men and women of good will"* (n. 16) — a **universal** register in line with *Pacem in terris* (John XXIII 1963), *Laudato si'* (Francis 2015) and *Fratelli tutti* (Francis 2020). **Special appeal to AI developers** (n. 111): *"every design choice expresses a vision of humanity"*. Key **magisterial source** cited: *Antiqua et nova* (Dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith + Culture and Education, 14 January 2025) + *Quo vadis, humanitas ?* (International Theological Commission, 9 February 2026). A major document of the **2026 social Magisterium**, at the junction of Social Doctrine ↔ AI ethics ↔ big-tech geopolitics ↔ critique of microworker labor/rare-earth extraction. Implicit convergence with **Mensch / Mistral** (AI energy sovereignty), **Sun / NYT Permanent Underclass** (cf. labor→capital shift), **Wallace-Wells / NYT AI Populism** (cf. critique of tech oligarchs), **Mollick × roon** (cf. ASI and internal politics). First encyclical by a Pope to explicitly take AI as a **central, structuring subject** rather than one theme among others.

Arthur Mensch (MistralAI) devant la commission d'enquête sur les vulnérabilités numériques — compte de l'Assemblée nationale

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

**Arthur Mensch** (CEO **Mistral AI**) is testifying under oath before the **commission d'enquête sur les vulnérabilités numériques** of the National Assembly (chaired by Philippe Latombe, absent). In May 2026, Mistral has **1,000 employees**, is valued at **€12 billion**, targets **€1 billion in revenue** by end of 2026, invests **€1 billion in R&D**, with 30% of revenue in France, 70% outside France, 75% in Europe. Clients: DINUM, Caisse des dépôts, France Travail, ministère des Armées, Stellantis, TotalEnergies, BNP Paribas, Luxembourg. **Pivot thesis**: ***"cloud is artificial intelligence"*** — no distinction between digital services and AI. **Framing metaphor**: AI is a **natural resource** — *"we transform electricity into intelligence, into token generation."* **Base economics**: 1 GW of datacenter = **$50 billion in investment over 5 years**, generates **$20 billion in tokens/year** ≈ 50% gross margin; along the electron→token chain, ~10% of the value is in the electron, ~90% elsewhere. **Alarmist macro thesis**: if Europe imports 10% of its payroll in non-European AI, **an additional €1 trillion trade deficit**; **$20 trillion in infrastructure investment** is needed to serve 400 GW across Europe. ***"We don't have time"***: a **2-year** window before European energy resources are monopolized by US hyperscalers deploying **$1 trillion/year**. **Sovereignty strategy**: ***"don't think of sovereignty as isolationism but as leverage."*** Four risks: economic security (cut-off access), defense (Russian AI drones → conventional deterrence), cultural shaping (US/China biases injected), trade deficit ×5. **Defense doctrine (implicitly anti-Anthropic-Mythos)**: Mistral works with the ministère des Armées and French allies, but ***"we don't claim to have the democratic legitimacy to explain to the French armed forces what they can do."*** Duty of advice on **reliability**, not veto power over **final use**. On cyber, Mensch denounces the *"fear marketing"* of an American competitor: the offensive capabilities of models are rising *"in a linear, predictable way, for everyone at the same time."* **Campus IA** (Saint-Arnoult, €35 billion, MGX/Abu Dhabi + Nvidia, 100 hectares, 1.4–1.6 GW): Mistral is a **very minority** shareholder, potential supplier. ADEME life-cycle assessment for the models, anti-carbon-offset stance. **Regulation**: 27 unsynchronized regulations + GDPR + AI Act = ***"regulation favors the big players,"*** entrepreneurs leaving for the US. *"It's a form of colonialism"* (on the US narrative devaluing EU regulation, internalized by Europeans). **Public procurement = leverage (50% of EU GDP)**: *"the United States and China have used it massively since the 1940s — we need to stop being afraid to use it."* **Distillation = internal cost reduction, NOT technological catch-up** — so you still need to know how to train large models, which requires a lot of R&D. **Mistral's internal productivity**: ×2 in 6 months, *"Mistral engineers no longer write lines of code,"* a new posture as **agent manager**. **No bubble** on the demand side, but a **supply bottleneck** in chips/electrons. **Warning conclusion**: ***"if we combine AI strength with electrical capacity, we can regain a sustainable market share. We absolutely must do it, because otherwise we will become a vassal state."***

A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready. (Silicon Valley oligarchs worried about the risks their technology posed to the world. They forgot about people.)

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

**David Wallace-Wells** publishes a major political pivot article (~16 min audio read) in the **NYT Magazine** on **May 8, 2026** that formalizes and names the populist backlash against the AI industry: ***"A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready."*** Cutting subtitle: *"Silicon Valley oligarchs worried about the risks their technology posed to the world. They forgot about people."* **Pivot thesis**: AI founders (Altman, Amodei, Musk, Zuckerberg, Hassabis) spent a decade obsessed with the **existential** risks of their technology while **neglecting the political risk** of a human backlash — which they thought *"wouldn't materialize in time, would be quickly outmaneuvered by machine intelligence or could be bought off by talk of basic-income payments or thin promises of curing cancer"*. **The backlash struck literally**: April 2026, a **Molotov cocktail** thrown at Altman's San Francisco property, then a few days later a **gun attack** on his house. Wallace-Wells picks up **Jasmine Sun**'s phrase (NYT Opinion 2026-04-30, already on file): ***"A.I. populism's warning shots"*** — an analogy to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. **Five labs as the new faces of American oligarchy**: *"a fearsome concentration of economic and social power producing a self-compounding pattern of extreme inequality"* — Sam (Altman), Dario (Amodei), Elon (Musk), Mark (Zuckerberg), Demis (Hassabis), nearly all billionaires, *"several of whom are widely described as sociopaths"*. **Shock statistics**: Pew Research 2025 — **50% of Americans more concerned than excited**, **only 10% more excited**; recent Quinnipiac poll — **only the >$200k income bracket has an optimistic view of AI for daily life**; Heatmap polling — data center support/opposition swing from **+2 points (Sept 2025) to −24 points (Feb 2026)**, a **26-point swing in 4 months**; Northern Virginia 2023-2025 — a **69-point swing against data centers** (+45 → −24). **Loudon County**: data centers will generate **$1.3B of $2.9B** in tax revenue in 2027 (~45%). **Investment-housing asymmetry**: the United States **spent more on AI infrastructure than on single-family homes** in 2025, **10× more data centers than Germany** (#2), **20× more AI investment than China** (#2), amid a **housing shortage of 10 million missing units**. **Central Ted Chiang quote (BuzzFeed 2017)** invoked: *"When Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no-holds-barred capitalism."* **Dario Amodei quote (Anthropic, 2024)**: *"People outside the field are often surprised and alarmed to learn that we do not understand how our own A.I. creations work. They are right to be concerned: this lack of understanding is essentially unprecedented in the history of technology."* **Political pivot flagged**: the **White House** proposes forcing a **federal review of all new proprietary models before release** — a major turn after a pro-industry stance. **Catalyst**: Anthropic's public refusal in **April 2026** to release **Claude Mythos**, a model capable of *"find[ing] and exploit[ing] security vulnerabilities in every tested piece of software, including those used in critical pieces of global I.T. infrastructure"* (already on file via the **AISI UK GPT-5.5 / Mythos** fiche, 2026-04-30). **Dean Ball quote (original architect of Trump AI policy, Palantir Foundation Yale conference)**: *"This giant acid vat which would dissolve the mediating institutions most Americans see as society. It will not be A.I. in government. It's going to be A.I. as governments."* **Jeffrey Ding concept**: *"diffusion marathon"* (vs. winner-take-all race) — AI as a *general-purpose technology* (steam, electricity, internet) where **diffusion** matters more than the **state of the art**. **Pivot conclusion**: *"We still know the names of the robber barons, and live still somewhat in their shadows. But we are not their serfs. Are we sure A.I. will be different?"* Major relevance for the 2026 file: **conceptual formalization of the political backlash** anticipated by Sun (April) and flagged by Ng in The Batch (Altman Molotov cocktail, ~$64B in blocked data centers, Maine 20MW+ moratorium). To be mobilized for AI geopolitics executive committees, regulation debates, strategic presentations on the societal and political risks of AI, and FR/Europe framing of AI's political feedback loop.

SecNumCloud en (pas si) bref

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Vincent Strubel, Director General of ANSSI, published a clarifying article on LinkedIn following debates triggered by the SecNumCloud qualification of a "hybrid" cloud offering using American technology operated by a European provider. SecNumCloud is a qualification issued by ANSSI certifying that a cloud service presents a high level of security suited to sensitive uses by the French State and companies. The evaluation process verifies more than 1200 requirements covering technical, legal, and organizational risks. Regarding extraterritorial law, SecNumCloud guarantees that data is not subject to non-European provisions against which customers would have no recourse. The requirement for a European provider (registered office and capitalization), the inaccessibility of data to non-European subcontractors, and operational autonomy protect against injunctions under the CLOUD Act or American FISA laws. The "kill switch" scenario is also covered: a qualified European provider cannot be forced to cut its services due to sanctions or export restrictions. Strubel nonetheless acknowledges an important limitation: "SecNumCloud does not mean the absence of dependency." No player can "fork and maintain in autarky the entire cloud technology stack, from the Linux kernel to Openstack." A cutoff of access to non-European suppliers would lead to a progressive degradation of security. Data localization within the European Union is mandatory, subjecting physical infrastructure to European law and facilitating intervention by CERT-FR and other state services in the event of an incident. On the technical level, cyberattacks constitute "the most tangible threat weighing on sensitive cloud uses." The reference framework imposes strong segregation between customers, an isolated administration chain, secure update management, and systematic data encryption. Human risk is covered by an entire chapter on human resources management. In response to frequently asked questions, Strubel specifies that hybrid offerings satisfy exactly the same requirements as other qualified offerings. He uses an illuminating metaphor: having only capitalistic criteria or only technical criteria would be like having a house "with armored shutters and bars on the windows, but whose door would be closed by a curtain." SecNumCloud addresses two of the three digital sovereignty issues (not being an easy victim, applying one's own rules) but does not create alternative technological solutions. It is a formalized cybersecurity tool, not an industrial policy.

Enquête : la révision discrète du RGPD – qui y gagne, qui y perd ?

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Presented as a "simplification," the 156-page Digital Omnibus project rewrites the foundations of the GDPR with major implications for data governance and AI. Its most decisive amendment concerns Article 9 on sensitive data: by restricting protection to data that "directly reveals" a pathology, the text downgrades all indirect indicators (mobility, heart rate, sleep patterns, behavioral stress) to the less protective general regime. This reclassification is strategic because these weak signals precisely feed predictive health profiling and AI model training without consent. The document also extends legitimate interest (Article 6) to optimization, anomaly detection, and AI model improvement, making consent less central for many uses. Fundamental individual rights (access, rectification, erasure) would be restricted by a "manifestly excessive" criterion with no clear definition, giving companies more latitude to refuse citizen requests. On governance, ENISA (the cybersecurity agency) would inherit powers previously exercised by national data protection authorities, centralizing legal interpretation toward a technical institution and reducing local nuance. This project responds contextually to American criticism and pressure from tech giants. It symbolizes a quiet abandonment of the European distinctiveness that placed fundamental rights at the center of digital regulation, in favor of competitive alignment. The winners are clearly identified: major tech platforms, generative AI players, and industrial states seeking to lighten regulatory constraints. The losers are numerous: citizens whose rights become contestable, SMEs facing an unclear legal framework, DPOs (data protection officers) with weakened mandates, and national authorities stripped of their powers. According to Max Schrems and other data protection experts, this revision represents "death by a thousand cuts": each isolated amendment appears technical and minor, but cumulatively they erode the protective spirit of the GDPR without media noise or public debate. The political question extends beyond the text itself: does Europe choose to maintain its position as protector of fundamental digital rights, or align with the American model of maximal data exploitation? For AI4Data and AI governance, these changes are critical: they weaken the European framework that was precisely the differentiator and the trust-based competitive advantage.

White House Unveils Americas AI Action Plan – The White House

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

On **July 23, 2025**, the White House unveiled "Winning the AI Race: America's AI Action Plan," a comprehensive strategy designed to secure the United States' preeminent position in artificial intelligence. This initiative directly responds to President Trump's January executive order aimed at dismantling obstacles to American AI leadership, with the ultimate goals of human flourishing, strengthening economic power, and protecting national security. **Three founding pillars** The action plan details **more than 90 federal policy actions**, slated for near-term implementation, organized around **three founding pillars**: accelerating innovation, building American AI infrastructure, and leading international diplomacy and security. **Pillar 1: Accelerating innovation** Under this pillar, the plan prioritizes simplifying the regulatory landscape by removing federal regulations deemed burdensome that hinder AI development and deployment. It actively solicits private-sector input to identify and eliminate unnecessary rules, thereby fostering an environment more conducive to technological progress. A crucial aspect of this pillar is the commitment to defending **free speech within frontier AI models**: updated federal procurement rules require that the government contract only with **large language model developers whose systems demonstrate objectivity and are free from top-down imposed ideological bias**. **Pillar 2: Building American AI infrastructure** This pillar is dedicated to strengthening the country's foundational technological capabilities. This involves actively promoting the rapid construction of **data centers and semiconductor manufacturing plants**, through accelerated and modernized permitting procedures. The plan also introduces new national initiatives to develop **the workforce in critical, high-demand trades** essential to this infrastructure, such as electricians and HVAC technicians. **Pillar 3: Leading international diplomacy and security** This final pillar outlines the strategy for extending American AI influence globally. The **Commerce Department and State Department** will collaborate with industry partners to deliver **full, secure AI export packages** — including hardware, models, software, applications, and standards — to allied nations. This strategic move aims to reinforce American technological leadership and ensure that global technological progress continues to be driven by American innovation. **Statements from key officials** Officials' statements underscore the urgency and scope of the plan. **Michael Kratsios** (Director of the OSTP) states that the plan "charts decisive course to cement U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence." **David Sacks** (AI and Crypto Czar) reaffirms that "to remain leading economic and military power, United States must win the AI race," while warning against "Orwellian uses of AI." **Acting Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio** declares that "Winning the AI Race is non-negotiable." For more information, the administration points to **AI.Gov**.