UATX founder Joe Lonsdale (@JTLonsdale) sat down with OPM Director Scott Kupor (@skupor) to talk about bringing merit-based hiring back to the federal government, rebuilding accountability for its two million civilian employees, and why the country's toughest problems need young talent. His message to students: your government needs you, even if just for two years. Thanks to the David Network for co-hosting.

EPISODE 161: The Robotics GPT-3 Moment @JTLonsdale sits down with @peteflorence Pete and @GeneralistAI are changing everything we know about robotics: -- robots trained on new tasks in seconds (seconds!) -- self-taught ambidexterity & other breakthroughs -- 10X more science and how the world will change (00:00) Episode intro (01:30) Bay Area to MIT and DeepMind (03:55) Pete's epiphany: robots sitting still (08:30) Why intelligence, not hardware, is the next frontier (13:20) The GPT-3 era of robotics (14:55) Why leave DeepMind? (16:50) How to train robot brains (18:30) Emergent ambidexterity (20:40) LLMs vs robot world models (23:50) GEN-0, GEN-1 & scaling laws in robotics (27:28) 10x more science per year (32:50)  Skilled trades, reindustrialization & future of robots

🚨NEW @JTLonsdale with @JesseBWatters on what's really behind the AI doomerism: "They've given up Christianity in most of San Francisco... if you give up religion, you want some kind of messianic complex, some kind of big thing to believe in. These effective altruists — this is their Messiah, this is their end of the world, this is their obsession." Jesse Waters: Am I going wrong anywhere, Joe? Joe Lonsdale: I think President Trump and you are correct. There is a coordinated campaign to make the American people afraid... There's over 50 organizations that were coordinating campaigns, doing narrative intelligence tests, testing public opinion, and spending huge amounts of money trying to scare people. It's regulatory capture, on one hand. It's our adversaries, of course, want us to stop. And I'll tell you what else it is: America has always been very religious, but they've given up Christianity in most of San Francisco. So this is like a messianic complex where this is their religion and the end of the world. And they're obsessed with it. It's weird. Jesse: So these guys don't believe in God. They're atheists, but they've created something which they believe is god like, is that what's going on here? Joe: I think that's a big part of what's happening. Listen, AI is real by the way. What you said is right, there's an industrial revolution coming that's amazing for America if we get it right. People who hate America want to stop it. But yes, America has always... we were founded by kind of extreme Puritans, right? We've always been very, very religious. We've had these awakenings. And I think this is a form of what happens if you give up religion is you want to have some kind of messianic complex, some kind of big thing to believe in. And these effective altruists, this is their Messiah and this is their end of the world and this is their obsession. So I think it is a little bit unhealthy in terms of the spiritual life in San Francisco that's broken. Jesse: So the chip guy, who runs Nvidia, he's basically saying it's not true. There is no even 10% chance of human extinction from AI. Do you believe that?  Joe: Yeah, I believe that. I think there's definitely risks where, for example, if the I guess if people use it for viral synthesis and a DNA synthesis site, they could cause a lot of deaths. I think there's going to be lots of hacking that happens thanks to AI being used by people. I think there's other risks that we can't yet understand for how authoritarians could use this... to trick the populace by being really good at knowing how to appeal to huge numbers of people about horrible things. So there's lots of risks, and there's lots of upside. But I think these doomer narratives are ridiculous. And I think we should be embracing the industrial revolution, and we should be pushing back on these NGOs. By the way, the same thing they did last time with climate change, with killer bees... These guys want power. They want money. We shouldn't buy it. Jesse: Killer bees. I forgot about that one. So you're saying you could use it to control the population, but, I mean, we could also use it to root out corruption in the federal government. Are Democrats kind of scared that that I could be used against them? Joe: I think that's exactly right. I think people don't realize how much AI is on the side of liberty, how much is anti-corruption. Scott Bessent's doing a great job as Treasury Secretary and changing the rules so we can look through things, we can start using AI. There's investigative journalists already getting going, finding all sorts of fraud in HHS that only AI could have found because there's so much to look through. And so, yes, I think it's going to be a very positive thing for society. It's going to root out all that money that they're stealing and moving around to their NGOs, and they don't want that happening. I think you're right about that.

.@DavidSacks says if Dario Amodei truly believes frontier AI could end humanity, he has no business running Anthropic. Make it safe, shut the lab down, or step aside.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 President Trump says Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is "pretending to be a perfect little angel" for wanting to slow down AI development.

🚨NEW: Joe Lonsdale unloads on data center myths at RNC midterm debate. @JTLonsdale: Are you willing to admit the water thing is fake about data centers? Almonds use 1.5 trillion gallons a year. Data centers is 22 billion. Golf uses 25 times as much water. There's just fake attacks... I responsibly agree with you on our civilization needing to keep its core values and its faith and not have our kids disrupted by these things. I also think it's responsible for more of the populace to say, guys, this is bullshit. Because what's happening here is there's a seam in our civilization — driven by anxiety, by real worries that are legitimate. But that seam is being exploited by bad actors... There are psyops driven by China and Iran that push this stuff, and it will lead us to idiot policy... the same way Russia was caught funding anti-fracking campaigns. They find these seams, they try to get us to do dumb things so they can beat us. And we are not going to let them beat us.

NEW: @JTLonsdale at @ApplyToForum debate at RNC midterms takes on right-wing doomers and calls for "big daddy government" to smother AI and data centers. Joe Allen: However flawed it is, at least the desire to bring these guys [Big Tech / AI labs] under control is best met, however flawed it is, through big daddy government. Joe Lonsdale: I appreciate that perspective, that you're very negative on it. Overall, I think you're attributing a little too much to like the ChatGPT consumer interaction and not enough to the way in which industry is using AI to bring back manufacturing, to solve problems, to raise productivity. The only way we all get wealthier is raising productivity. We're already seeing very clearly signs that it has definitely led to job growth, not job destruction. I agree with you -- there are some people running some of these tech companies who seem to have this doomer PR, which as far as I can tell, is retarded. And if you want to punish them for that, I kind of empathize with you... But don't let them trick you. Because what a lot of them want is a big regulatory apparatus that they can capture. Because if you do create something at the federal level, you can bet the guys with trillions of dollars in their pockets can hire a thousand people that are going to find ways to capture that and use it against the rest of us. We have to be very careful, not just to do what the left wants and give the government all this power, which then will get captured, and then we're all screwed. We are the greatest nation on earth, in my opinion, in large part because of our freedom and our property rights and our checks on government power, our checks on corporate power as well. And because of our innovation sector -- it's tied to all of that. If you're on the left, you're worried about the companies. If you're on the right, you're more worried about government ... I think we're really screwed when the companies and the governments work together ...when those guys get together and come after us. That is what they want. So let's just be really, really careful. Whatever we put in place prioritizes competence, and it's not something they're going to be able to capture and use against us.

Today, Covenant is emerging from stealth and introducing Anthem: a heavy-payload deep precision strike capability designed for mass production, with deliveries beginning in the thousands in 2027. We’ve raised $250 million, flown Anthem in more than 200 tests, and secured approximately $150 million in orders, including contracts with the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and key international allies. We’re building Anthem at our 105,000-square-foot production facility in Dallas, alongside factories in Germany and Israel. Covenant is backed by @a16z, @foundersfund, @Lux_Capital, @lightspeedvp, @8vc, @aleph, and @AltimeterCap. Deep precision strike is the biggest gap in the arsenal of the West, and we spent the last two years building Anthem to fill it. Now we deliver at scale.

COMING SOON: Chairman Jovanovic joins @JTLonsdale on the @AmOptimistShow for a conversation about how EXIM is helping build a stronger, more competitive America.

The world needs far more software than it can build. Cognition exists to change that. We’ve just raised over $2B at a $48B valuation, led by a16z, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Avenir. Since our round in May, run-rate revenue has grown from $492 M to almost $900 M.

The nice thing about being an AI optimist is that I'll always be right. The inconvenient thing about going up against the AI doom-and-gloom crowd is that they'll always be convinced they're *about* to be right.

JUST IN: Bernie Sanders unveils the “Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act,” which would outlaw AI systems that match or exceed human capabilities, with up to 20 years in prison for violations.