Somewhat. The US Gov can make it illegal to transact with, download, use, etc. foreign open weight models.
Of course, enforcement will be difficult for individuals (businesses will comply by default, and they would all be pulled off Github and other US based hosting locations if they went the sanctions route). But, we are also quickly going down the road of frightening levels of mass surveillance, which could aid enforcement.
The Fable situation sets a very dangerous precedent, and I'm not looking forward the future here. We are losing the fight for information and computing freedom.
I think that this is what OpenAI/Anthropic want but they wont say it publicly. The will be OK with the US banning regulating and banning open source models as it let's Anthropic and OpenAI charge huge premiums to American business clients for their models.
Also the marketing of them getting to say "our models are so dangerous" only a few companies or select users are allowed to use (benchmark) them would help keep their valuations high.
In the United States it’s illegal to sell Chinese EVs. It’s also illegal to download copyrighted music and movies. Which one do you suppose illegal open-weight models would more closely resemble?
Since I am not familiar with the law, can you expand on the mechanism by which the US government could making downloading openly licensed files illegal? How would the government avoid denying people their first amendment rights by doing this?
There's a few different levers they can pull, most of them economic & commerce. IEEPA and OFAC sanctions primarily.
They don't have to criminalize the act of downloading open weight models to effectively block access (to foreign open weight models, they have less levers to pull for US based models).
With sanctions and commerce rules though, they can unilaterally prevent all US based businesses from hosting & using them. They will need to be pulled off huggingface, github, gitlab, etc. ISPs could be put on the hook for folks torrenting them as well because technically that could be considered providing serivces to a sanctioned entity. There doesn't need to be monetary exchange.
Likewise, they can use export controls & sanctions to prohibit US companies and individuals from contributing to foreign open source projects as well.
If it went to court, the DOJ would argue that model weights are not speech because it is machine-readable parameters, and not used as a medium of human communication like source code.
Lastly, first amendment rights are unfortunately not absolute since the PATRIOT act. US Gov just has to declare a national security threat and all your rights go out the window.
I mean my state has been making it illegal to download 3d models of pieces that could be used to make guns in a 3d printer
It’s a very broad law and likely not legal, but it’s going to take a long time to be fought through the courts, and in the meanwhile people will probably be arrested for creating or sharing a file for something that may be able to become a gun part.
You’re correct that it shouldn’t be a thing but unfortunately American society is not in a good place right now
Oh, you think? The US have a habit of imposing sanctions on companies that don't respect their prohibitions- so for example they decided that companies cannot offer services to a certain EU citizen in the EU otherwise they'll be in a sea of troubles. In theory, imposing these so called "secondary sanctions" is against international law; in practice, the EU is so spineless that doesn't even dare to protest.
Yes, obviously. The US has no jurisdiction outside of the US (except for economic sanctions, which the US could in theory put sanctions on other countries that use models from sanctioned countries).
Honestly, banning SOTA LLM services is the best thing the US could do for AI.
It’d force people to run inference locally, and that’d expose the actual $/perf of the models instead of keeping it secret then propping it up with circular revenue and blatant securities fraud.
If we don’t do something like that, we won’t have much of an AI industry post-bubble.
I wouldn't bet on it. Chinese live the free market ideals instead of just preaching them but rent-seeking and seeking regulatory capture at the first opportunity. In China business doesn't control politics. Dynamics is completely different and so might be the outcomes.
The fact that politics controls businesses there might lead to, but doesn't necessarily ensure, a "brighter future". It's pretty common knowledge that authoritarian regimes can, especially in extreme, disastrous situations on a large enough scale, function better than less centralized and more open organizations. The problem is that there's less resistance to directing that effectiveness toward something that will make at least some people's futures much darker.
Then again, just because business controls politics doesn't mean there's much more decentralization or openness, either. In the end, the main advantage of this model was predictability - sure, we have an "inner circle" that forces its policies in both cases, but the businesses are at least predictable in their decision making, always chasing profit, based on hard numbers, unlike the other side chasing whatever flavor of ideology they believe in (or want to sell) this month... Wait. I just recalled "colonies on Mars" and "metaverse," and the cognitive dissonance made me blank out for a sec here.
In any case: while the Chinese model seems to have some upsides, especially compared to the current situation in a few other places on the globe, I don't believe it has a significantly higher chance of helping us achieve a "brighter future". I may be depressed, but in virtually every scenario from this point, I can only see a bleak future ahead of us. Getting to AGI under current conditions makes for completely unpredictable societal and political chaos, yet not getting there (and fast) risks the bubble bursting (causing, of course, unpredictable economic and, by extension, societal and political chaos). The longer the current situation persists, the lower the probability of finding an off-ramp that won't upend everybody's and their dog's lives. Yet, there is no incentive to back off from the race either.
I really wonder what's next - what kind of poop will finally hit the fan, and when exactly?
You criticize the government, perhaps rightfully, but give Anthropic a pass. They are the ones fueling this bullshit. Downgrading your results without telling you. Refusing your requests in the name of “safety”. Even if the government didn’t make them pull the model for foreigners, we’d still be in a really shitty situation because Anthropic is really shitty.
I don't criticize based on vibes. The US government is overreaching, seemingly as a retaliation for Anthropic's refusal to let the US use a jailbroken version of their software in autonomous lethal systems. Hegseth is like a drunk vindictive ex
Somewhat. The US Gov can make it illegal to transact with, download, use, etc. foreign open weight models.
Of course, enforcement will be difficult for individuals (businesses will comply by default, and they would all be pulled off Github and other US based hosting locations if they went the sanctions route). But, we are also quickly going down the road of frightening levels of mass surveillance, which could aid enforcement.
The Fable situation sets a very dangerous precedent, and I'm not looking forward the future here. We are losing the fight for information and computing freedom.