The Moon, the Model Wars, and the Quiet Pressure Behind the Curtain
The Moon, the Model Wars, and the Quiet Pressure Behind the Curtain I knew something strange was happening when the most grounded part of the AI news cycle was a 72-year-old restoring a Chevelle. Everything else felt like it was drifting upward — into orbit, into billion-parameter benchmarks, into gray zones of safety policy — while that one story stayed human and solid and quiet. And that contrast is exactly why this moment feels heavier than it first appears. Because while we’re being shown rockets and roadmaps and restructuring plans, the industry underneath is tightening, accelerating, and fraying all at once. This story matters right now because AI isn’t just scaling technically — it’s scaling structurally. Companies are reorganizing. Models are getting stronger and riskier. Open-source challengers are closing the gap. And long-term infrastructure bets are creeping into literal outer space. It’s hard to tell whether this is the golden age of innovation or the momen...
