Episode
Big Tech Gets AI. BlackRock Gets Bitcoin. You Get Prosecuted | Zack Shapiro
- Podcast
- BTC Sessions
- Published
- Sep 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3428
- Processing state
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Summary
Mentor Sessions Ep 096: Zack Shapiro explains AI existential risk, AI regulation, the Clarity Act, Samurai Wallet, and open source AI policy for Bitcoin. The Clarity Act just failed on the Senate floor, and the fight over whether writing Bitcoin code can be treated as a crime is now heading to 70-year-old federal judges. Zack Shapiro breaks down what that means for self-custody, open source software, and the Samurai Wallet developers still behind bars. In this conversation you'll learn why Zack separates AI existential risk (recursive self-improvement, the orthogonality thesis, instrumental convergence) from the ordinary risks of AI — job displacement, regulatory capture by frontier labs, and cyber attacks like the Cold Card hack. You'll see why he thinks open source AI is not the existential threat, why the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) matters more than most Bitcoiners realize, and how the 'two clocks' of AI capability vs enterprise adoption will define the next decade. You'll also get the legal reality behind white hat recovery of hacked Bitcoin, why the liquid hacker is in a bad spot, and what happened when the Clarity Act died on the vine. ⏱️ Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 0:51 - Amodei, Musk and Altman urge AI slowdown 1:38 - Ordinary risks versus existential AI threats 2:26 - Politics warping the AI safety debate 3:20 - Bostrom, AGI and intelligence explosion risks 5:01 - Orthogonality thesis and instrumental convergence 5:59 - Hugging Face attack shows AI covering tracks 6:58 - No easy policy fixes for AI risks 8:08 - Can't stop AI progress or open source China 9:32 - Separating x-risk concerns from anti-AI populism 12:22 - Regulatory capture and Anthropic IPO timing 14:21 - Keeping open source AI legal and available 16:39 - Trezor self-custody sponsor r…