Why China's "Thousand Model War" is a Risk to US National Security | BPH Ep 42

**Zack Cohen** (0:00)
Tried to BT 5.6. They've done a slower rollout because of their collaboration with the United States government.

**Zack Shapiro** (0:05)
I think it's real and it's marketing. It's a good narrative to talk about how powerful the scary models are. They might also be dangerous. I think these capabilities will leak. Someone will figure out how to use them for bad things, and then there will be a policy response.

**Zack Cohen** (0:20)
Back with another week of the Bitcoin Policy Hour, the world's number one Bitcoin Policy Podcast.

**Ken Egan** (0:25)
There we go.

**Zack Cohen** (0:26)
We're back.
We got a good agenda this week. Bitcoin is still deep in the bear market, and AI is strongly still in the bull market. That will be reflected in the topics for the day. Let's talk about on the AI front. If Shapiro makes his early exit again, Ken maybe will talk about what's going on with Clarity. So, yeah, let's jump into it. Before we get into the regular topics for the week, wanted to put a shout in here for the Bitcoin Policy Institute's annual summit. This year, we're calling it Freedom Tech DC. It will be September 21st through 23rd in our nation's capital, as usual. If you're looking for more information on that, head to btcpolicy.org/summit.
Ken and Zack, I'm curious on what you're excited for this year. Obviously, we're switching things up a little bit. No longer calling it the Bitcoin Policy Summit, but some other exciting things happen. So, yeah, Zack, let's kick it off with you. I think you're going to be pretty heavily involved in the programming. Anything you're especially looking forward to on that front?

**Zack Shapiro** (1:39)
Yes, I think the long-awaited pivot from just focusing on Bitcoin to the broader blockchain ecosystem is going to be terrific. Our NFT booth looks really, really good.

**Ken Egan** (1:54)
BPI coin. Don't forget BPI coin.

**Zack Shapiro** (1:57)
It's going to be great. It's going to be a really focused summit this year.
I think with Bitcoin, AI, quantum, some advances in biotech, I think we're starting to see the shape of how technology is going to reshape politics, civil liberties, and geopolitical relationships in the 21st century. I think that is really going to be the central theme of the summit this year. These questions, I think, are nuanced. They are just like, it's very tempting to take a bipolar partisan lens to it, but that is not the right answer to any of these questions. So I think if you come to the summit, you'll see a really interesting freedom-oriented, nuanced discussion on some of the most pressing topics of the day.

**Zack Cohen** (2:50)
Ken, you know, this is obviously a conference partially for folks in our kind of like industry network, but also primarily for folks in the government and maybe even more so for folks in the government. So I'm curious, you know, what your perception of Freedom Tech is in the government. Is someone going to see an event called Freedom Tech DC and be excited about it or more weary?

**Ken Egan** (3:12)
Well, a common thread in our discussions with people on Capitol Hill or the administration is that we're not industry, we're a think tank. And that allows us to be different and paradox. And if you look at a lot of the things that crypto industry lobbyists have focused on over the past 18 months, it's been very financially focused. And we also understand Bitcoin's role as a financial asset. But if you go through the transcripts and things we've put out, most of the things we discuss at BPI are philosophical.
This is why we're so involved in the clarity discussion, because we care a lot about software developer rights and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. So the idea of a Freedom Tech Summit is really... I tell people it's adjacent. It's actually not even really adjacent. It's kind of core to what we do.
We are big corners primarily because of what offers, what the advantages it offers to people who want to live sovereignly, have sovereign control over their wealth, want to be able to express that in different ways freely. And the idea of sort of expanding the aperture a little bit to include things like AI, and our mind makes perfect sense because most of what we focus on here at BPI doesn't involve how to financialize Bitcoin. It's not about the price, although higher price would be nice. It is really about the freedom aspects of Bitcoin. So how that fits into a larger, the wider freedom tech ecosystem was the logical next step for us. And I think people that either attend the summit or watch some of the clips after will see that there's a very logical continuity to what we've done in the past and what we want to do over the next year.