[specialist]

It's an attack on USA's AI tech giants.

Destroy any hope of profitability, prevent further capitalization, ultimately bankrupt them.

Hasten the popping of the AI bubble.

Drag down the stock market.

Put a dent in the GDP (alleged growth).

Cause investors to pull back, further depressing economy.

Devalue the dollar. Kicking off an interest rate doom loop.

Challenge USA's hegemonic role in the emergent multi-polar (post neoliberal) world order. (Gleefully supported by the ruling coalition's anti-globalist America First faction.)

It all makes perfect sense.

[g42gregory]

US "AI tech giants" are foaming at the mouth about "dangers" ans "safety", about "how US customers can not be trusted with AI", how much everybody should pay them, and how many $Trillions should they make, at US customers' expense.

For each "AI tech giant", there are millions of other US companies that will benefit from broader AI availability. US economy (and US tech economy) != Anthropic + OpenAI.

[specialist]

Absolutely.

Every other player, especially domestic, would benefit if USA's monopolies get busted. Ditto usurers, trusts, monopsonies, cartels, etc.

[epolanski]

Such narratives are always so US centric, as if every country in the world is obsessed by us. That's not the case.

There might be foreign policy implications but the biggest reason is really nurturing their own tech independence and entrepreneurship.

[matthest]

Not US-centric, top dog-centric. The US is just the current top dog.

The US is a barrier to a number of key Chinese goals, like reunification with Taiwan. So of course most of what they do will take the US into consideration.

[codemog]

Not everything is an 8D chess conspiracy mate. If they wanted to do this, they’d wait until OpenAI and Anthropic were at their absolute peaks of investment and then release an open source model that was as good. That’s not what they’ve done at all.

[hnfong]

I agree, but you think OpenAI and Anthropic are not already at their absolute peaks of hype and investment?

At valuations of about trillion each, I don't know where else they'd go..

[sscaryterry]

Those valuations are sure to be re-assessed with new evidence...

[chongli]

A hundred million is table stakes. They get better results by stoking the fires (bluffing) and keeping their opponents locked in a war of raising and re-raising the stakes. By amping up the pressure, they drive more and more investment into the bubble.

China also benefits massively through all of the commodity hardware they make. Sure, they aren't competitive in the chip arms race, but they dominate all the component and power electronics markets. Think about all the power supplies and other commodity components needed to build a gigawatt-scale data centre.