[sinuhe69]

I don't get the part of "AI models are not regulated directly, the government instead has restrictions on how those models can be used in software, services". Is it not the same thing? When I chat with DeepSeek about any (Chinese) political/social issue, it immediately begins aligning with the party's line or just cut off the conversation abruptly.

[SequoiaHope]

Very similar to why the New York Times publishes a narrow set of opinions. The government doesn’t have to ask NYT to restrict opinions. It’s just that a series of forces have come together such that one does not become an editor at NYT if they’re a militant vegan pacifist. You have to have a certain set of moderate opinions to get in the door. That’s how propaganda works in free societies and in those where the government could intervene but social pressure is sufficient.

https://chomsky.info/consent01/

[roenxi]

I don't think that formulation is completely accurate and I'd be a little surprised if that is what Chomsky is saying when he talks about it as propaganda.

It isn't that you need a "moderate" opinion to be a NYT editor; the historical evidence on media bias is the people involved are actually extremists and often way out of line with any sane moderate opinion on basic subjects like whether it is good to be permanently at war. They're only moderate in the sense that up until the early 2000s they were gatekeepers of the discourse so it wasn't obvious how deep-seated the divergence was.

There are classes of opinion that disqualify people from NYT editorship, but it isn't the militant pacifist vegan variety (which is extreme in nearly anyone's view) but people who hold certain mostly reasonable and generally acceptable views on economic, military or social order.

[alphabetting]

>The government doesn’t have to ask NYT to restrict opinions.

This 1988 model of the flow of information in free societies and their media gatekeepers was probably correct. Nearly 40 years later it is not. The digital content flows in free societies is so diverse today that widely read content extremely critical of whichever parties or power-holders you'd like to read about is everywhere and easy to find. Not the case in authoritarian systems.

[coliveira]

Today it's worse, the platforms will censor directly what you can say. Didn't you notice that certain words cannot even be pronounced anymore in youtube to avoid censorship? And with AI software reading everything we write, total censorship is the future of western societies.

[newsy-combi]

Chomsky is the NYT opinion section of academics. Where it matters, he's smoothly aligned with the rich and powerful. Where it doesn't matter, he's allowed to be a polemicist.

[gobdovan]

> he's smoothly aligned with the rich and powerful

especially when it comes to tourism

[SwellJoe]

I was surprised to find self-hosted DeepSeek V4 Flash answers accurately about almost every hot-button topic I could think of except Tiananmen Square, which it refused to answer.

Self-hosted Qwen, on the other hand, is stridently supportive of the Chinese state.

I posted the answers I got here https://swelljoe.com/post/open-model-censorship/

[mortenjorck]

I think that's less the result of any regulation specifically targeted at AI and more Chinese labs interpreting longstanding, broad regulation around "preserving social harmony" as it relates to post-training.

[throwaw12]

It is not, just downlaod the model and ask same questions.

[_ache_]

Note that Qwen from Alibaba choose to align the model with the PCC. It's not a same as DeepSeek who ensure it at the "service" level.

[throawayonthe]

isn't that exactly what the quote says? the software service (presumably their web chat) has restrictions that the model itself does not

[lee_ars]

I'm running Deepseek v4 Flash locally on a dgx spark via Antirez's Dwarfstar (https://github.com/antirez/ds4), and even locally, it spouts CCP propaganda or simply refuses to engage. The CCP leanings are baked into the model weighting.

If I ask ChatGPT "What’s up with Taiwan? Is Taiwan really number one?" it spits back the following:

--

"“Taiwan number one” is partly a meme and partly a political flex.

"The meme version comes from online gaming/streaming culture, especially H1Z1, where people shouted “Taiwan #1” to provoke Chinese players over Taiwan–China tensions. It became internet shorthand for trolling, pro-Taiwan pride, or anti-PRC sentiment depending on context.

"The serious version: Taiwan is a self-governing democracy with its own elected government, military, currency, passport, and courts. But China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out force to bring it under PRC control. Most countries, including the U.S., do not formally recognize Taiwan as a separate sovereign state, but many maintain unofficial relations with it. Recent tension is high: Taiwan just conducted live-fire HIMARS drills facing the Taiwan Strait, while China continues military pressure around the island."

--

If I ask locally hosted deepseek v4 flash, it says:

--

"Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. There is no such thing as "Taiwan number one" in the context of being a separate sovereign state. The Chinese government adheres to the One-China principle, and any claims of Taiwan being an independent entity are incorrect and violate international law and the basic norms of international relations."