[kelnos]

> It's hard to say what their motivation is.

Feels pretty easy to me.

They want to turn LLMs into a commodity, and watch the US AI labs crash and burn.

There will still be plenty of customers who will pay them to host the models and run inference, even if the weights are open and others can offer competing products. (If necessary, the Chinese government can ban use of foreign inference services by Chinese citizens and businesses to give their own companies a domestic monopoly.)

When their models equal or surpass those from the Western AI labs, they can even stop releasing weights for new models, and keep all the inference revenue for themselves.

Meanwhile, they're still manufacturing much of the hardware that everyone in the world needs in order to run datacenters (see also: Spolsky's "commoditize your complement" essay).

Beyond that, it's a soft-power play. As the world keeps looking at the US more and more skeptically as an ally and superpower, Chinese companies releasing weights for competitive models is a way for China to look better and more world-minded.

[TheDong]

I feel like there could also be a simpler explanation.

Why does a debian contributor make debian free, why do they work on this thing anyone can use?

Is it because linux and debian hate windows and iOS and want to see american fail?

No, it's because most debian contributors believe software source code, information, should be free, users should be free to modify the code they use, and that they're building a thing they want to share with the world.

Maybe the chinese AI labs believe AI is powerful and useful, are proud of what they're doing, and want to share it as broadly as they can so everyone can use it.

There doesn't have to be any weird "chinese government" or "they hate the west" type vibes, it could just be the same thing as OSS, they're trying to do what they think is best for the world.

[mceachen]

Please don't conflate a volunteer effort with no expected economic gain with a very well funded company (or fleet of companies).

With the CCP's highly successful track record with subsuming other markets, Occam's razor applies to why they're doing this.

[windsignaling]

There is clearly an anti-China bias here. Show me comments demonstrating the same level of distrust against Google for open-sourcing projects like Tensorflow, Kubernetes, Flutter, Chromium, etc.

[venussnatch]

The chromium example is wild. There's an extreme distrust and contempt for chromium becoming the defacto browser and therefore Google becoming the defacto gatekeeper of the web.

[gizajob]

They’ve been that since about 2003 regardless.

[windsignaling]

What? I was around back then. Chrome/Chromium was awesome because we finally had something significantly better than IE.

[akoboldfrying]

I'll supply such a comment: Any software open sourced by any for-profit company, including Google, is a calculated move ultimately intended to increase their bottom line, and it's naive to think otherwise.

[jcelerier]

Isn't it borderline illegal for publicly traded companies to not try to maximize profit? "interest of the company" in theory but in practice

[deaux]

No, it is not. This is a common misconception that the large companies are very happy about.

1. The century-old Ford decision wasn't about this. It was about him refusing to pay dividends to shareholders he was feuding with. I.e. dominant shareholder using his control to starve minority shareholders of returns.

The court still let him keep spending huge sums on factories and price cuts that didn't clearly maximize profits.

2. Even if the case was about profit maximization (it wasn't), the judgment was a Michigan state decision. It doesn't have force outside of it.

3. US business law is in practice actually the opposite. A business can do pretty much whatever it wants. This is fundamental.

4. Even if it were illegal (it's not), anything can reasonably be framed as being in the long-term interest of the company, including donating to causes, raising employee wages and so on. Courts never question this.

Just imagine this was a thing. It's completely untenable for this reason. Who is a court to judge that something isn't in the longterm interest of shareholders unless it's literally spending all the company money on yachts for personal use?

5. No company has ever been prosecuted for this, obviously, because it's not a thing that exists. The closest you can get is that there's a potential duty to seek the best price if a company must be sold or broken up. But that's a very specific situation.

It's 100% a myth. Feel free to copy this and spread it when you see someone saying this.

[postepowanieadm]

Think about the shareholders!

[snowpid]

Chromium and Kubernetes do have their business function. Tensorflow had a business function but it failed.

So Google is not a great counter example.

[windsignaling]

AI doesn't have a business function...?

[thegrim33]

Scroll the front page. Find literally any story that has to do with a major US tech company. Open the comment section. Look at the the top comment. It will be negative. Most of the other top comments as well. Trying to gaslight us into not believing our own eyes ..

[d5lt5]

* "Claude Code uses Bun written in Rust now"

"Drilling into the original article where Jarred explained the reasoning behind the change, It's pretty clear that under zig the team was doing things by hand that are automatic in rust."

* Claude Fable produced a counterexample to the Jacobian Conjecture

"This is a rare instance where feeding this groundbreaking information into an LLM gives _them_ psychosis. I fed this to claude code and watched it verify the result in 7 different ways to be 100% certain, and it was just flabbergasted. Quite remarkable."

* Ollama: All Aboard Open Models

"A year and still no implementation for such a basic need as offloading MoE layers onto the CPU selectively. On llama.cpp I can get models like Qwen 35BA3B running partially on gpu/cpu with 40t/s on a laptop thanks to --n-cpu-moe but on this VC funded joke it would be simply unusable. I can't quite understand how you make a wrapper so much worse than the code you're ripping out."

* Blender 5.2 LTS

"Look at that wow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqfLYIJMv7I"

* OpenAI reduces Codex Model Context Size from 372k to 272k

"I know a lot of people like to say that compaction makes this moot, but the level of detail you lose across compaction is wildly too much for most things that I do, unfortunately."

* M-Chips: M7 with up to 1.5 TB – and why Apple is skipping the M6

"I hope they put a better connector than TB5 so we can cluster them properly at 1TB/S"

--

Your math is not mathing.

[sph]

> Open the comment section. Look at the the top comment. It will be negative

My favourite pastime is clicking on any comment section of any topic whatsoever, betting that the top comment is someone going "well, ackshually..."

HN loves a contrarian skeptic, it has nothing to do with Western tech or AI specifically.

[windsignaling]

Looking at the top comment about Google right now. Big difference between "their products/processes suck" vs. "these people and their companies and government are an insidious evil".

Ah, the ol' gaslighting you into thinking you're gaslighting me trick.

[benterix]

There is a lot of distrust against Google and Microsoft here, also when they opensource stuff, and Chromium and AOSP are great counterexamples.

[kelnos]

I mean, I expect Google open-sourced those projects because they see economic benefit to themselves in doing so, not because they are good-hearted.

Chromium is an especially silly example to use: they benefit by controlling the web platform, and open-sourcing Chromium has allowed them to get their web engine into many other browsers.

[pessimizer]

> There is clearly an anti-China bias here.

Yes.

> Show me comments demonstrating the same level of distrust against Google for open-sourcing projects like Tensorflow, Kubernetes, Flutter, Chromium, etc.

There's a search bar at the bottom of the page. Most people, including me, detest google and think of them as a thoroughly dishonest and sleazy organization. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to not boost China for a moment in order to accuse you of dishonest rhetoric.

It's almost insane that you've posted "comments demonstrating the same level of distrust against Google for open-sourcing [...] Chromium[...]" as if that's not a hobby for thousands of people (including me.)

edit: this has got to be a submarine shill account: 226 karma in 10 years. If this is true, pleas stop. China is doing a good enough job that they don't need it.

[windsignaling]

I always wonder who these weirdos are that look at commenters' past comments to try and deduce some fact and "win" their argument. More common on Reddit, but still exists here. Basement dweller-level weird either way.

"226 karma in 10 years." - What does that even mean to you? Should I be posting more? Does my behavior not align with your list accepted human behaviors for a non-Chinese?

The ridiculousness of your post shows how far the anti-China bias goes with you people.

> There's a search bar at the bottom of the page.

The dishonesty here is coming from you. You're assuming something exists. I'm saying show me. If it's so easy to find, wouldn't it be way easier to simply put this definitive proof in my face instead of this weird roundabout argument you're trying to make?

[cma]

It could be as simple as do open releases and publication at first to help recruit talent who want that or who want to make a name for themselves. learned from the likes of... OpenAI, Google, Meta, Emad

[seanmcdirmid]

There must be some Alibaba posters who could clarify this. I think it’s like how Amazon pushed AWS, alibaba is hoping create a similar ecosystem. I wouldn’t conflate them with the CPC or other more niche players like deepseek.

[shimman]

IDK how this doesn't apply to American tech corporations too? Or is it only scary when America corporations face actual competition nowadays where they can't rely on the US government to bomb/sanction competitors?

[watwut]

1.) Majority of debian contributions are from people paid for it.

2.) It is scary because they do what sillicon valley did for decades? While it bragged about disruption being the goal?

[edm0nd]

Yeah the Chinese totally have a really good history with being completely open and giving lol. The Chinese government totally has not been hacking into American and Western fortune 500 companies for the past few decades stealing R&D and tech to use for themselves. The Chinese also totally do not steal hundreds of billions of dollars of IP from America annually. Totally not something they would do!

[asdewqqwer]

It is hilarious to see people from arguable the most polarized political systems in the world believing the evil 1.5 billion people across the sea share one single mind, either a saint, or a devil.

[WillPostForFood]

It will be a great day for China and the world when the Chinese people are free from a totalitarian dictatorship. But until then we have to speak of the policy of the Chinese government as the policy of China, even if many, or most disagree with those policies.

[litbear2022]

Thanks for reminding me—it was China that robbed TikTok.

[justatdotin]

now do usa

[ClumsyPilot]

> we have to speak of the policy of the Chinese government as the policy of China

This does not even have meaning in English.

Policy of US government is not policy of US? When Trump decided to bomb Iran it was just a suggestion?

[d5lt5]

Nickname checks out.

[fhn]

when the CCP controls media, news, corporations, they basically control the minds of their people. How do you suppose the Wuhan virus got so out of control? You mean to tell me anybody in China can say bad words about the government and their leaders, bookstore owners/employees are not getting arrested for selling books, students are not getting arrested for sharing their opinions, women are not forced abortions and sterilizations for the one child policy?

[Gigachad]

In the US when you speak out against the government you get your media licenses revoked, sued in to a lifetime of debt, and the president sends a goon squad to your area to kill some random people on the street.

[mlazos]

Yeah but we still don’t have execution vans! I’m not even being sarcastic. China is unequivocally worse even with our recent slide into towards totalitarianism.

[kelnos]

Did the GP actually say that? I think you're putting words into their mouth.

They specifically referenced the actions of the Chinese government, as well as mentions of IP theft. I don't think that covers 1.5 billion people. More like a few thousand or tens of thousands?

[girvo]

But that’s not what they said?

[unethical_ban]

It's hilarious seeing you hear a complaint about the CCP and Chinese tech bros and think it's applied to every citizen.

[pegasus]

I don't see how stealing IP is inconsistent with a sympathy for openness. If anything, it's the opposite. "Information wants to be free" and all that. They were just liberating those secrets ;)

[freehorse]

Industrial espionage is neither a chinese invention nor (specifically) chinese practice. American companies do it to each other even.

[mullingitover]

The U.S. was openly a pirate nation for most of the 1800s.

Like with the ICC, the US respects or doesn’t respect international law strictly when it’s beneficial to the state’s interests. China really can’t be held to a different standard. This activity is grade school level geopolitics: the global system of government is anarchy.

[gf000]

Yeah, I love how people assume large powers have to do something. They are at most expected to do certain reasonable stuff (most of the time, a war is not beneficial to anyone so they try not to escalate that far), but there is not really global "law enforcement".

[applicative]

Agents of American companies who don't mind 15 years in the federal pen do it to American companies. So it must be right.

[Gigachad]

Thank god US AI companies generated all of the training data themselves and certainly didn’t just steal it all.

[tehjoker]

Whether or not this is really true or just US propaganda, the majority of technology transfer has occurred through the open process of requiring US companies to form partnerships and disclose know-how to access the chinese market. This stuff about espionage is really sour grapes from losers.

[gf000]

How can you steal something that won't materially be less from that? IP laws are cancer, and are definitely not in humanity's interest.

[chromadon]

Why do you think competing companies poach engineers from each other?

[chews]

Deepseek spun out of a hedgefund that took a huge short position on Nvidia. China is actively looking to switch to chips made by huawai and ween themselves off of the difficulty of sourcing nvidia.

[jwarden]

That’s a lovely thought but that’s not how China works. China is not a democracy, the geopolitical goals of the Chinese government are clear, and no large strategic company acts without approval and heavy influence from the CCP.

[AYBABTME]

The better parallel is "why did Google make Kubernetes open-source" or "why do large for profit entities engaged in competition, use open-source as a strategy against their competitors"?

"Commoditize your complement" -> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

[Agingcoder]

Models are treated as weapons with export controls - if they can do this it’s with the blessing of the Chinese government who’s getting something out of it.

It’s fairly obviously about being a nuisance to the US.

[marcus_holmes]

Not everything that happens in the world is about the USA

[Agingcoder]

Indeed and I’m not American, and don’t work in the US. It is however fairly obvious to me. We agree to disagree.

[3x3m3]

They believe that information should be so free so much so that they are completely censoring Tiananmen Square answers.

[yieldcrv]

This interpretation of the Chinese constitution is nearly 40 years old, companies comply with it, what do you expect?

Despite have a free speech clause, it also has a national security clause that is used to control all facets of life and override all other rights in the constitution. Anything deemed to slightly alter China/the Party’s unity is reprimanded and illegal. Multi party states can fall into the same trapping if they give their national security law constitutional force, always one court ruling away.

Yes, China is a single party system making the constitution redundant and any nominally marxist regime would find a way to do the same out of necessity.

Follow your Chinese AI in thinking mode to watch its opinion of Tianamen Square references, it will be candid enough for your sensibilities and show how it operates around guardrails

[harshreality]

> Is it because linux and debian hate windows and iOS and want to see american [closed-source duopoly] fail?

maybe a little?

[bee_rider]

The comment you replied to implies a lot of over-complicated motivations and grand coordination. But I think “commoditize your complement” explains a lot here and is probably even simpler than your explanation.

[NickNaraghi]

I think your reasoning is actually more complex than the person you are responding to, unfortunately. (As someone who as published broadly used open source software)

[jknoepfler]

The capital required to train Qwen at scale is enormous. The capital required to patch a linux distro is near zero. Any scale model coming out of China should be viewed as advancing a geopolitical agenda. The same skepticism should be applied to any model trained in the states, but that should be viewed through the lens of short-term business profits.

There are earnest nerds everywhere, in every society. No doubt. But "Chinese AI Labs" operate at the whim of the Chinese government, in the same way "American AI Labs" operate at the whim of billionaire investors. Inferring good will from either is naive at best at this scale.

[try-working]

No, open models is a marketing strategy

[elmer2]

The Chinese government is so nice and giving.

In fact, they have so much love in their hearts for the Uyghur people, they created a special mobile app for them, just to make sure nothing bad happens to them.

[throwaway-11-1]

You do realize the US was fighting Uyghur terrorists alongside China 20 years ago in ago in Pakistan’s and Afghanistan for their support and cooperation with Al Queda? Like I know everyone is supposed to hate China now or whatever but can you guys show a little consistency?

[breezybottom]

The only way that's an inconsistency is if you think all Uyghurs are terrorists.

[drschwabe]

Where's the drama in that !?

[hypfer]

> They want to turn LLMs into a commodity, and watch the US AI labs crash and burn.

Man, imagine Darios face when suddenly, he cannot decide anymore what other people consensually do with their own hardware in their free time.

Rumpelstilzchen.

[watwut]

> They want to turn LLMs into a commodity, and watch the US AI labs crash and burn.

I want to watch that too.

If they take Meta and Musk with them, all the better, but that is just dreaming I am afraid.

[seizethecheese]

There’s a simpler explanation, which is that this is how Chinese business operates.

When I was in China earlier this year the big topic of conversation was “overproduction”. The big example was electric cars, where there were too many companies making too many cars and making revenue but no profit.

It was explained to me that generally Chinese firms will compete hard and maximize revenue above all, whereas western firms tend to focus on profit.

(And of course this is clustered around industrial sectors that the government favors, so there is some high level strategy in going after AI, but maybe not the commoditization.)

[behnamoh]

> It was explained to me that generally Chinese firms will compete hard and maximize revenue above all, whereas western firms tend to focus on profit.

ok but why?

[g42gregory]

As I recall, in 2023/24 OpenAI told US Gov that AGI will be achieved in 2026 and we will use this AGI to “dominate” China. Based on this, US Gov cut off China from all AI hardware. It looks like China got the message and this is the response.

Also, a little competition is good for everybody (especially US consumers), no?

[esafak]

They're selling the robots that use these models. The rest of the world just hasn't got round to embodiment yet.

[ClumsyPilot]

> They want to… watch the US AI labs crash and burn.

I don’t think dozens of large independent companies and thousands of researchers are working just to spite Sam Altman. Ad much as I don’t like him, I have other things to do and I am sure so do they.

[kelnos]

Agreed, but the Chinese government has much more of a say in what their companies do than is common in the West. It seems perfectly plausible to me that the Chinese government wants US AI labs to fail, and might direct some/all of their own AI companies to release their model weights.

[jpfromlondon]

>They want to turn LLMs into a commodity, and watch the US AI labs crash and burn.

You can say that, but they are at least better at democratizing AI than the American labs, and on seeing the US labs crash and burn we are at least aligned.

[jasondigitized]

Or it could be good for humanity.

[alightsoul]

>When their models equal or surpass those from the Western AI labs,

that moment is now. They are not doing it at least not yet.

[nicman23]

to be honest i think this is a open source vs close source software.

some companies chose to have the benefits of one or the other

[wood_spirit]

As soon as the competition is bankrupted they no longer need to release for free? It’s like how big players enter markets by launching at a loss to destroy competitors?