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by mejutoco 2 days ago
> Somewhat. The US Gov can make it illegal to transact with, download, use, etc. foreign open weight models.

Presumably you mean in the USA (otherwise foreign means nothing)

2 comments

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.
That does not make it illegal in other countries, which was the claim.
Technically, not illegal.

Practically, the sanctions/restrictions will be imposed, due to fear of losing access to US market/US infrastructure.

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).