Bernie Demands the Labs Stop, Wall Street Turns GPUs Into Bonds, Grok 4.7 Takes #1 with Emad Mostaque | EP #279

August 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Senator Bernie Sanders sent a formal letter to the CEOs of Anthropic, Meta, and OpenAI demanding an immediate pause on AI development, citing the belief that AI capabilities have reached a critical safety threshold. He referenced a Stanford study where researchers used the open-source AI model Evo2 to design DNA sequences for a bacteriophage, synthesizing 300 designs and producing 16 viable phages capable of infecting E. coli. A genetics expert called it "biology's Wright Brothers moment." The panel dismissed the letter as political posturing and fundamentally misguided. They argued that pausing development punishes intelligence itself, that open-source models cannot be uninvented, and that the only effective defense against bad AI is good AI. The real control point, they argued, is not the model but the physical equipment—DNA and RNA synthesizers—which remain largely unregulated.

Wall Street Turns GPUs Into Bonds

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 Moonshots with Peter Diamandis | EP #279
2 Bernie Demands the Labs Stop, Wall Street Turns GPUs Into Bonds, Grok 4.7 Takes #1 with Emad Mostaque
3 (00:00) **Longevity XPRIZE Finals & the Healthspan Mission** - Peter announces the $101M Healthspan XPRIZE finals, awarding $1M to 10 teams on the march to the $80M grand prize
4 (10:28) **Retrospective Hyperdeflation & the Singularity** - The panel debates whether past decades of incremental science were wasted when superintelligence can now solve problems instantly
5 (19:46) **Hollywood Collapse: Higgsfield's $2M AI Movie** - A 110-minute feature film made for 2% of normal cost and 6% of normal time, with all 10 workflow steps open-sourced
6 (21:51) **China Dominates Text-to-Video & Open Source LTX 2.5** - Nine of the top ten text-to-video models come from China, while a new open-source model runs on a MacBook Pro
7 (40:26) **Grok 4.6 Drops — Matches GPT-5 at $2.6/M Tokens** - Elon's latest model ties frontier performance with a focus on long-running agents that self-test and verify

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Emad Mostaque

Show Notes

The Mates sit down with Emad Mostaque to discuss Bernie Sanders’ call to halt AI development, Wall Street turning GPUs into financial assets, Grok 4.7 taking the top spot, AI’s growing impact on Hollywood, and the race toward superintelligence.

Get access to metatrends 10+ years before anyone else - https://qr.diamandis.com/metatrends

Peter H. Diamandis, MD, is the Founder of XPRIZE, Singularity University, ZeroG, and A360

Salim Ismail is the founder of Open ExO, a GP at Exponential Venture Capital/The Organizational Singularity Fund and a sought after global speaker and thought leader.

Dave Blundin is the founder & GP of Link Ventures

Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross is a computer scientist and founder of Reified

Emad Mostaque is the founder of Intelligent Internet ( https://www.ii.inc )

Read Emad’s latest papers exploring the future of society, law, personhood and governance: https://ii.inc/common-wealth

Pre-order Emad’s Book “The First Princple” - https://shorturl.at/L3Tug

Read Emad’s Book: https://thelasteconomy.com

–

My companies:

Apply to Dave's and my new fund:https://qr.diamandis.com/linkventureslanding

Get the blueprint for generative media https://goo.gle/startupgenmedia

Go to Blitzy to book a free demo and start building today: https://qr.diamandis.com/blitzy

Your body is incredibly good at hiding disease. Schedule a call with Fountain Life to add healthy decades to your life, and to learn more about their Memberships: https://www.fountainlife.com/peter

Join the Moonshots Mates on Sep 25th for the inaugural Moonshots LIVE. The world's greatest entrepreneurs, builders and creators, working together to build a hopeful and optimistic vision of tomorrow. Seats are limited and application only. Apply at moonshots.com before seats are sold out.

Connect with Peter:

Connect with Dave: