The American AI industry is split over open models. In the letter, Amodei said he agrees with much of what was said in the industry-wide open letter, except that open models are a necessity for safety, and said that his remaining concerns would not be addressed with blanket bans and sanctions. Amodei’s second “nightmare scenario” is that powerful AI models could be used to carry out cyberattacks or biological attacks, especially if they “have serious alignment problems.” Banning the use of Chinese open models by American businesses would not address this security risk, Amodei argues, “because bad actors are unlikely to be legitimate US businesses.” Instead of a blanket ban on open models, Amodei said he supports a government crackdown on industrial-scale distillation operations, requiring mandatory safety testing for all AI models open or closed, and an end to American chip sales to China.