[Retric]

Belief that the CCP is behaving poorly isn’t racial prejudice, it’s a factual statement backed by a mountain of evidence across many areas including an ongoing genocide.

Extending that to a new bad behavior we don’t have evidence for is pure speculation, but it need not be based on race.

[nostradumbasp]

Yea but I think the OPs point is something along the following lines. Not everything you buy from China, or every person you interact with from China is part of a clandestine CCP operation. People buy stuff everyday from Alibaba and its not a CCP scheme to sell portable fans, or phone chargers. A big chunk of the factories over there are US funded after all... Just like how it's not a CCP scheme to write a scientific paper, or create a ML model.

Similarly, I see no evidence (yet) that DeepSeek is a CCP operated company anymore than saying any given AI start up in the US is a three letter agencies direct handiwork or a US political party directive. The US has also supported genocides and a bunch of crazy stuff, but that doesn't mean any company in YC is part of a US government plot.

I know of people who immigrated to China, I know people who immigrated from China, I went to school with people who were on visas from China. Maybe some of them were CCP assets or something, but mostly they appeared to me to be people who were doing what they wanted for themselves.

If you believe both sides are up to no-goodery thats in the face of the OPs statement. If you think it's just one, and the enemy is in complete control of all of its people doing all of their commerce then I think the OP may have a point.

[Retric]

Absolutism (“Every person”, “CCP operated”, etc) isn’t a useful methodology to analyze anything.

Implying that because something isn’t clandestine it can’t be part of a scheme ignores open manipulation which is often economy wide. Playing with exchange rates or electricity subsidies can turn every bit of international trade into part of a scheme.

In the other direction some economic activity is meaningfully different. The billions in LLM R&D is a very tempting target for clandestine activities in a way that a cheap fan design isn’t.

I wouldn’t be surprised if DeepSeak’s results where independent and the CCP was doing clandestine activities to get data from OpenAI. Reality does need to conform to narrative conventions, it can be really odd.

[nostradumbasp]

I completely agree with you and apologize for cheapening both the nuance and complexity where I did.

My personal take is this. What deepseek is offering is table scraps for the CCP's actual ambitions with what we call AI. China's economy is huge on industrial automation, and they care a lot about raw materials and manufacturing efficiently than say the US's interests.