China's Moonshot AI and the AI race, open models break free, plus the car alarm you should check tonight

The latest Uncanny Valley podcast from Wired covers three stories worth knowing. First, accusations that China's Moonshot AI used Anthropic's models — the same ones powering Claude — without paying for them. Second, open-source models are finally breaking free from the walled gardens, running on cheaper hardware and no longer needing big cloud credits to compete. Third, a practical tip: check your car alarm, because the one you're sleeping next to might be beeping.

The Moonshot story is the big one. It's not just another patent dispute — it's about who owns the models that power the world's AI tools, and what happens when a country with deep pockets starts using them like a public good. The US Army is also cutting back on AI, which tells you the trend isn't as settled as the headlines suggest.

Why this matters for us: the models we rely on are becoming a battleground, and the ones we can actually control — open, local, free to run — are the ones that won't disappear when a vendor changes its pricing.