Mythos - The AI Too Dangerous to Release | Data Center Wars + Will Vertical AI Die? | Ep. 6 Show Your Priors Podcast

What happens when an AI model becomes so good at finding security vulnerabilities that releasing it to the public would be genuinely dangerous? That is the question at the center of this week's episode, and it turns out the answer reveals just as much about AI business strategy as it does about cybersecurity.Jason and Michael dig into Claude Mythos, Anthropic's unreleased model that has already demonstrated the ability to find zero-day vulnerabilities in major software at a rate that dwarfs anything previously seen. Through Project Glass Wing, a small circle of companies including AWS, Apple, Cisco, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, and Nvidia are getting controlled access to use it defensively on their own infrastructure. Is this genuinely responsible AI development, a brilliant enterprise sales play, or a quiet move to invite the kind of regulation that raises the cost of competing? The answer is probably all three, and the conversation gets into exactly why.From there, the episode turns to the AI data center buildout and the growing backlash against it. Energy bills, noise pollution, farmland usage, and NIMBYism are all converging into a volatile political situation. But is the real problem the data centers themselves, or the bureaucratic gridlock that is making it nearly impossible to bring new power generation online fast enough? With China holding a significant energy cost advantage, the stakes of getting this wrong extend well beyond electric bills.The final topic is one that matters directly to anyone in business strategy, finance, or enterprise software: the vertical AI question. Can foundation models like Claude, GPT, and Gemini eventually eat the vertical AI and SaaS companies built on top of them? Or do the business model tensions, distribution realities, and domain knowledge requirements make that scenario far less likely than the bears believe? Recent research suggesting that foundation models are actually getting worse at long-term strategic reasoning makes this debate even more interesting.Before all of that, Jason and Michael cover the week's headlines: Meta going proprietary with Muse Spark after years of open-source positioning, Google quietly releasing a free AI dictation app that threatens the entire vertical of paid transcription tools, Anthropic surpassing OpenAI in annualized run rate, Intel joining Musk's Terrafab chip fabrication project, and the growing pile of controversy surrounding Sam Altman.Connect with us:Subscribe to Show Your Priors for weekly conversations on business, strategy, and the ideas shaping the world.Clips Channel | YouTube:  @sypclips  Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/7qz3G3XoOaSPpg2elfKmH3Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/showyourpriors/Threads | https://www.threads.com/@showyourpriorsTikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@showyourpriorsX - Michael Nichols | https://x.com/m_g_nicholsX | https://x.com/showyourpriorsSubstack | https://showyourpriors.substack.com/Reddit | https://www.reddit.com/r/ShowYourPriorsPodcastLinkedIn - Michael Nichols | https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-guy-nicholsLinkedIn - Jason Thompson | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-thompson-607b0b5400:00 Intro00:34 Headlines17:24 Claude Mythos and the Cybersecurity Threat31:00 AI Data Centers and the Energy Crisis46:18 Vertical AI vs. Foundation ModelsKeywords:artificial intelligence, AI strategy, OpenAI, Anthropic, AI business, AI investment, AI data centers, cybersecurity, AI enterprise, foundation models, vertical AI, AI energy consumption, Meta AI, SaaS disruption, AI regulation, technology strategy, AI infrastructure, AI market competition, AI podcast, zero day vulnerability, AI chip shortage, technology investing, AI venture capital, Claude AI, AI corporate strategy, energy grid, AI power, Sam Altman, semiconductor chips, AI startups