[ninjahawk1]

The U.S. does NOT have copyright protections on the data that AI models were and are trained on, it was mass theft. Now all of a sudden, the Chinese are stealing from the thieves and we’re supposed to care?

No one cares, we just want cheaper AI models that are equally as powerful. They’re all thieves regardless.

[dang]

Ok, but can you please follow the HN guidelines and focus on specific, thoughtful discussion, not generic/indignant tangents? The first is what we're trying for, and the second basically destroys it.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ultimately this is more a problem with the upvoting system than the comments themselves, since generic/indignant comments routinely attract lots of upvotes, and then sit on top of the thread, smothering more interesting discussion. But in terms of moderation we can only reply to commenters.

[jchw]

Its even dumber when you consider AI model output was not considered copyrighted or eligible for copyright to begin with, as far as I know. How exactly would this even be "theft"?

[trescenzi]

Plus on top of that it's been ruled that training on copyrighted material is allowed because it's transformative. As a result even if the model output is copyrighted training on it would be as allowed as training on books.

[mahkeiro]

If this was ruled ok why are they paying billions to book publishers?

[trescenzi]

Yea to be more explicit than the other reply they are being fined for the theft of the books not training on them. They trained on tons of legally procured books by destructively scanning and OCRing them. It was discovered in legal filings and is called Project Panama if you want to read more about it.

[jchw]

Because they pirated said books instead of buying them legally.

[glaslong]

I can't imagine Moonshot have found a way to completely bypass the subscription or api billing either. So those model outputs have been paid for! No theft of any kind!

At most they'd be getting more out of distributed use of subsidized plans and API than the ToS would prefer.

[rubyfan]

It’s theft because a lot of rich people have money on the line.

[sroussey]

It’s not they, but it does break TOS.

[crote]

As if scraping the entire internet doesn't break thousands of TOSes?

[sroussey]

Yes, indeed! I have a site where 99% of the traffic is Claude. I could ban them but I don’t bother.

[Twirrim]

I poison their requests with crap, particularly because they were the worst offenders for sheer request rate. The site has maybe a hundred pages, and I'd see them hit at a sustained 20 rps for weeks on end, same content being pulled over and over and over again. Easily handled by my small server as it's static content, but the sheer arrogance (inadvertent or otherwise) pissed me off.

I'm not sure if they caught on, or just finally started behaving better, but after months of being served crap in my never ending labyrinth of auto-generated junk, they have stopped.

[sroussey]

My stuff is on Vercel, so it’s more of an issue as it uses up my limits. I’m moving to Cloudflare and I want to see how changes I make affect their bot, if at all.

[SXX]

Better to feed them poisoned results...

[addedGone]

Scrapping internet realistically does involve Botnets of all kind, the scrapping itself might be legal, but it's certain a ton of infected computers are routing traffic and being used as Proxy.

[TacticalCoder]

It's still the pot calling the kettle black.

[cyanydeez]

steal from the rich -> theft

steal from the poor -> capitalism

[jchw]

pay the rich for their services then lawfully use what you paid for to compete with the rich -> national security issue?

[WarmWash]

Training on copyright was ruled to be transformative.

Anthropic was just fined for not paying for the pirated books they copied into a training database. Same as anyone else who copied pirated IP onto their hard drive.

However, training an AI on copyright has been ruled to be sufficiently transformative and not a violation of IP laws. The same way you can make a gameplay clone of Call of Duty without any issue.

[chalupa-supreme]

So they got fined for… stealing?

Also, if I clone Call of Duty, and use their skins, make a similar soundtrack, call my maps the same, then there will definitely be an issue.

I support the use of AI and all, but to hide behind transformative use of copyrighted intellectual property is a discredit to the colossal amount of human work and knowledge that these companies pirated and had their models trained on.

[WarmWash]

>So they got fined for… stealing?

Correct, 2001 napster style pirating of content. You cannot copy stuff you didn't pay for onto your hard drive.

>Also, if I clone Call of Duty, and use their skins, make a similar soundtrack, call my maps the same, then there will definitely be an issue.

A gameplay clone as I stated, tons exist (team death match, capture the flag, battle royale, with first person gunplay and army guys shooting each other). The rest is your argument, not mine.

[chalupa-supreme]

I don’t think I’d equate a corporation downloading TBs of copyrighted works (with the intent of making a profit on stealing copyrighted works) and John downloading a few GBs of MP3s for personal consumption.

[WarmWash]

Probably why John wasn't ordered to pay $1.5B.

[sznio]

yep, theft but not plagiarism.

[spwa4]

Theft would give the victim a one-time payment, plagiarism would have given the victims payments every time the model was used. In other words: IP stealing through training LLMs is declared 100% legal.

The question is what happens when somebody mass-"uncopyrights" entire libraries of content for the first time. Because, of course, this judgement should have sent the stock price of Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros, New York Times ... to zero.

Why? Because at this point these companies are living on borrowed time. Courts have outlined a clear, legal, process to "uncopyright" any given work.

[jnovek]

If I make Bambi 2 and toss it up on YouTube I’m going to be sued by Disney for a wide variety of intellectual property violations, it doesn’t matter if I make it by hand or via an LLM. Nothing has changed for big organizations with a legal team.

[spwa4]

Sued ... of course. But what will they claim? The courts have declared that training an LLM on copyrighted data and then having it produce anything DOES NOT make a derivative for the purposes of copyright. That it is fully owned by the person who used the LLM and zero licenses are needed to sell it, rent it out, or whatever.

[Tyrubias]

By that same argument, distilling a model to train your own is also transformative. We can’t have it both ways. Either both training on copyright and distillation are transformative, or both are illegal. Also, it is not a matter of settled law that training on copyright is transformative. That was a single case, and others are still pending AFAIK.

[FpUser]

>"Anthropic was just fined for not paying for the pirated books they copied into a training database."

Normal person would be sitting in jail for doing same thing. It is a shame they call it justice.

[supermatt]

> Same as anyone else who copied pirated IP onto their hard drive

Not really the same. Private citizens have received fines MUCH higher per-work when downloading for just their private consumption.

[pera]

Ruled by whom? The International Court of the Northern District of California?

[SheinhardtWigCo]

What if use an LLM and attach CoD screenshots, or assets?

[paulddraper]

You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4cxcsa

[nekusar]

Are public libraries thieves?

Is Anna's Library thieves?

Is Library Genesis thieves?

Is Archive.org thieves?

Is PirateBay thieves?

They all look like public libraries to me. And better access to all human knowledge is a net positive for everyone.

[tokai]

Public library buy the works they distribute. They also pay for the usage of these works. Copying of said works is still illegal. You should read up on how libraries actually work.

[nekusar]

That's NOT always been the case.

Libraries used to require membership and dues. Those then bought more books on the used or retail market. LOTS of fights were about that system, cause book publishers hated libraries. And well, they still do.

And to be fair, fuck copyright. Its holds all of us back, so someone can go "FUCK YOU, NO". And nobody or company deserves what is it, 70 years+ death copyright length.

And with the recent Anthropic settlement, used to be, for-profit pirates would go to prison. I also remember absurd 2000's settlements over Britney Spears and Metallica for $5000-$7000 for 20 songs.

You are not going to win me over on massive gatekeeping human knowledge over "Itssss ill-eagle!". I know, and I don't care. And if I'm ever in a case over this, I'll tank it.

[stanac]

> Copying of said works is still illegal.

Yes it is, but at least they are not charging for the access.

[ClumsyPilot]

That’s fine too, in that case Open Weight models made by China are doing humanity a favour

[nekusar]

I strongly believe that's the case. That's even the case with the recent OpenAI hack of HuggingFace.

The censorship of US models is so bad (read: guardrails), that they had to use GLM 5.2 on their own hardware to do the analysis. That's how locked down, restrictive, and closed source American models are. They're basically for-profit piracy by way of selling tokens.

Whereas the Chinese models are just "here you go, download and run".

I know what I run. Qwen3.5 and 3.6 and GLM5.2 . USA token vendors are incentivised in doing worse to sell more slot machine tokens.

[sheeshkebab]

Someone going to public library, copying every book out of it and then selling them as their own are thieves.

[RiverCrochet]

Not technically theft unless the public library no longer has the books. Selling something and saying you created it when you didn't is a different five-letter word: fraud.

Putting prompts in an LLM and saying you "created" the image or text thereof is fraud.

[sscaryterry]

I don't believe anything is being sold here :)

[runarberg]

AI companies sell access to their models, via subscriptions and ads.

Public libraries don‘t sell anything. Also authors and publishers get payed for having their books in the library (how and how much varies by country). Authors and publishers get nothing for having their books put into AI training data. Hence the former is a public service, and the latter is theft.

[sheeshkebab]

Barrels of tokens sold by thieves that copied every book sure looks like selling to me.

[__MatrixMan__]

No, they've merely infringed copyright. Theft is a well understood concept and it does not pertain to information.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Okay, but that's not what happened as far as I'm aware. Who did they sell their copies of the books to?

[__MatrixMan__]

Copyright infringement, maybe. Theft? No. When something is stolen from you, you don't have that thing anymore.

[lenerdenator]

The answer to widespread theft is not to simply allow the guy who did the theft to get away with it because his implementation was cheaper.

It's to punish theft.

[VulgarExigency]

But distillation is not theft. They are paying for the usage of the API. It is also not copyright infringement, as AI companies do not hold the copyright for the output of their models.

[kaibee]

> But distillation is not theft.

Legally no, but I think an honest reading of the 'fair use' statute doesn't actually pass the 'doesn't compete with the author's original work' aspect of fair use, even if the use is transformative.

[VulgarExigency]

Fair use? Anthropic does not own the copyright to the output of their LLMs. Fair use does not enter into it at all.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

Exactly! While the people who spent more money on their theft are rewarded with more business to counteract their losses! Justice is finally being wrought on those who have wronged society with their wicked ways!

(/s if it wasn't obvious)

Being serious, it is far more likely, especially given the events of the past 18 momths, that Trump is just doing autocrat things because he can, and ultimately doesn't really care what is and is not good for American business as long as he continues to grow his wealth through corrupt behavior.

[lenerdenator]

> Trump is just doing autocrat things

Yeah, he really is. It's awful. We're creating a class of elites that are accountable to no one, and their hold on power is slowly becoming sanctioned by law. It wouldn't surprise me if we soon had a system where there were people in various professions who considered themselves professional Trumpists who got to steer the fields they were in according to the diktats of the party. You would have to be in-line with their ideology to get anywhere in a career, whether it be in industry, politics, arts, or science. It'd suck.

You know where you see a fully-developed version of this idea?

China.

[skeeter2020]

not when by your own rules it's legally ruled "not theft".

[lenerdenator]

Rules are flexible. The people who pay attention know this.

People expect the US to apply rules evenly to both American AI efforts and that of its primary geopolitical rival. China certainly doesn't do that. Their entire economy is based around giving Chinese firms the advantage regardless of what it means for the wallets of consumers at home or abroad.

Since that's who we're playing against, and no one is going to willingly give up their open-weight models from the totalitarian rival, well, then use their ruleset.

It's that or punish the theft by making the US companies pay for their training data and blocking outside efforts that trained off the data the US companies stole.

[petilon]

> The U.S. does NOT have copyright protections on the data that AI models were and are trained on, it was mass theft.

Absolutely false. Courts have decided that it is fair use [1]. That makes sense. It should not be used to justify Chinese theft.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-judge-approves-anthropics-1...

[harshalizee]

Why is it not fair use for the Chinese models if all they are doing is distilling these fair use models? According to the courts, AI model output is not copyrighted or eligible for copyright.

[paulddraper]

Distillation does not violate copyright law.

It violates contractual terms of use.

[paulddraper]

Correct. This seems to be poorly understood.

You can use an original work to write an encyclopedia (e.g. Wikipedia). That is fair use.

You cannot copy an original work and distribute it.

LLMs are an encyclopedia.

[adrian_b]

But no Chinese company has copied and distributed an American LLM.

Even if they had wanted that, it would have been impossible, because Anthropic et al. do not let anyone access them directly.

Querying the available API can be used to extract only an extremely small part of the information stored in an LLM.

That part can be used for the post-training of another LLM, to obtain some desirable properties, but the extracted information is far too little to be called "copying" or "distributing". Moreover, after the post-training it does not appear anywhere in the weights verbatim, so its use is at least as transformative as the training of the original American model.

Besides these facts, there is no evidence that the Chinese companies have actually done this, even if it sounds plausible.

[paulddraper]

We’re talking past each other.

No one has claimed Chinese models violated copyright law.

Some have claimed they violated ToS, which is different.

[petilon]

Terms of Use violation cannot be justified as "transformative" or "fair use".

[JumpCrisscross]

This is a silly argument. Like yes, obviously it’s of less U.S. concern if one American is robbing another versus a foreign interest. We can deal with one whenever while the other creates constraints.

The better arguments are the ones made in the article. Open weights increase competition and thus AI availability in the U.S. economy.

[myrmidon]

This is not robbing. Undesired distillation is a ToS violation, at best.

There is not even jurisdiction over Chinese companies, because they don't sell their LLM subscribtions, unlike US companies, and those comitted much more severe violations in getting their training material than a ToS violation or two (Anthropic already found guilty).

edit: I don't see this as legal argument against the ban, more like a justification for why basically no moral person is gonna side with OpenAI and Anthropic on this. US gov can try and ban as many weights as they want, I expect that to be similarly effective as banning numbers was in the past (i.e. not).

[nickthegreek]

> There is not even jurisdiction over Chinese companies, because they don't sell their LLM subscribtions, unlike US companies, and those comitted much more severe violations in getting their training material than a ToS violation or two (Anthropic already found guilty).

This is false. They do sell LLM subscriptions. Many also release _most_ of their models as open weights.

[JumpCrisscross]

None of it is robbing because there is no violence, but sure. The point is being confused why an external threat is treated differently from internal ones is a self goal in a debate where there are far better arguments for not banning these models.

[wongarsu]

It's not like those American companies were only stealing form Americans. Maybe you could argue about utility, but morally I don't see any ground to stand on

And the utility argument is also very shaky. The proposed punishment for foreign interests stealing "US data" is that other Americans now aren't allowed to benefit from that, while the rest of the world can

[JumpCrisscross]

There isn’t an argument for banning Chinese or open-weight models. I’m just saying OP’s moralistic outrage take is about the weakest one you can come up with against it.

[sscaryterry]

Obviously stealing is bad, doesn't matter who you steal from. In this case, its a simple case of no honour amongst thieves.

[JumpCrisscross]

> its a simple case of no honour amongst thieves

Which is why making an honour-based argument to said thieves is silly.

[throwfaraway4]

Whether or not it’s robbery is irrelevant. It’s the proposed remedy that is the problem

[JumpCrisscross]

Sure. Great. OP’s argument focuses on the outrage. That’s focusing on the first bit.

[randbyte]

Blatantly lack of principles.

[JumpCrisscross]

Sure. The American electorate isn’t really principled right now. If the best argument we can surface is this tripe, we’ll lose access.

[jMyles]

The era of so-called "intellectual property" is over.

You can accept it or not. But it's going to be a lot easier if you do.

[crote]

So how come Disney still gets upset when I provide copies of their movies on my website as "training set for biological neural networks"?

The problem isn't that IP is dying - in most industries it died ages ago. The problem is that it is now explicitly reserved for the rich.

[jMyles]

> Disney still gets upset

Why do you care about Disney's emotional outbursts in the first place though?

> The problem is that it is now explicitly reserved for the rich.

That's not new - it has always served entrenched interests at the cost of actual artists and entertainers. John Perry Barlow laid this out with great clarity throughout his time with The Grateful Dead, perhaps best here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLbqgG6o1n8

[warkdarrior]

The solution is straightforward -- be rich!

[mc32]

One’s like taking something from your brother or sister and the other is like taking from your neighbor with whom you have a bad history…

[GlickWick]

I do care.

It's an unfortunate truth that we're exiting a global peace era and entering one of (hopefully just...) implied conflict. Our biggest geopolitical rival that's been threatening a hot war also distilling the things we build is not a good thing.

Trump is a huge self-own by our electorate sadly, but being concerned about a conflict between China and the US is a very bi-partisan concern for good reason.

[mywittyname]

Luckily for the peace side, the USA's inability to achieve their mission objectives in a war against an adversary that was perceived as being substantially weaker means they are very much less likely to engage in one with a "near peer".

The take away from modern conflicts is that massive military size disparities don't translate into successful invasions anymore.

In other words, it's unlikely USA will pursue a conflict with China, and it's unlikely China will pursue a conflict with Taiwan.

[mlinhares]

Yes, the administration is definitely and would not start a war for no reason other than to start a war.

People really have to stop sanewashing the government, it doesn't work anymore, these people are not thinking through what they're doing.

[sroussey]

I don’t think those are “learned” lessons. Only how to push harder next time.

[guax]

Might wanna reflect on who’s threatening hot war lately.

[dghlsakjg]

It's not a threat anymore if you actually start a war!

/s

[GlickWick]

The main actors threatening (and delivering) a hot war are China, and by proxy, Russia. The Ukraine war is absolutely and transparently enabled by China, who is also trying to actively destabilize the EU and the US in order to make its conquest of Taiwan more likely.

Yes, the US has an idiot in charge who is threatening these things in response, too. However, unlike China, the electorate does not support him. His election is also almost certainly due to aggressive campaigns to destabilize the US internally for this exact purpose.

[dgellow]

The US isn’t just _threatening_, it is in an open war right now, invaded Venezuela, started trade war with US allies

[encom]

>invaded Venezuela

Didn't happen. An intervention happened. An invasion lasts more than two hours.

[stanleykm]

Sorry who is China threatening a hot war with? As far as I can tell the US is doing most of the warring these days…

[GlickWick]

Taiwan, while simultaneously preparing an invasion fleet trained to stop US and EU attempts at a rescue.

[ClumsyPilot]

> The main actors threatening (and delivering) a hot war are China

China is actually the adult in the room.

Since 1979, 45 years ago, China has not dropped a single bomb on foreign land. That’s two generations peace.

In that timeframe, USA has attacked 37 countries, France 22, Britain 10, and Italy has attacked 6.

What determines if a country is a threat? Simple test - would they arrest Eipstein and execute him?

More politically correct phrasing - “do they respect American economic elites.” ?

If the answer is no, the country is ‘a threat to the west’

You don’t believe me? Name 2 countries that don’t fit this model.

[hax0ron3]

>However, unlike China, the electorate does not support him. His election is also almost certainly due to aggressive campaigns to destabilize the US internally for this exact purpose.

What are you claiming here?

That China hacked the voting systems enough to swing the election? I know of no good evidence of this.

That China changed voters' minds enough to swing the election? But then "the electorate does not support him" does not follow. If I change your voting choice using some kind of non-coercive persuasion such as by making an argument, your support for your new choice is still genuine support. It doesn't matter if my argument was good quality or not, what my country of origin is, or even whether I lied about my motives in making the argument.

[FpUser]

Count wars, invasions and simply messing with other countries by the US starting since the end of WWII and then come back. Your post is a pile of BS

[Tyrubias]

Our biggest geopolitical rival is also the only thing standing in the way of a potential duopoly on LLMs using closed weight models. I would not say I’m a fan of the PRC by any means, but I also do not want to see closed weight models controlled by two big companies dominating what I can use. Especially since said companies arbitrarily restrict model usage and can ban users for no reason.

[dgellow]

> It's an unfortunate truth that we're exiting a global peace era

You’re a tiny bit late on that one

[GlickWick]

No, we are in the process of an exit. This takes time

[ClumsyPilot]

Does this sentence have any meaning at all? There are 30 Active military conflicts right now.

[4wsn]

I keep hearing about this "we" as if it's still a coherent nation state and not just an unaccountable ruling class from both parties where the most severe consequence is failing upwards into a lobbyist provided position. I literally have no moral preference when it comes to the US or the CCP nor do I care if the entire nation state fails, let alone loses to a geopolitical rival.

[dataflow]

> nor do I care if the entire nation state fails

You should care because of the nukes, if nothing else.

[crote]

Are we even sure they still work? The last test was 34 years ago, after all.

For all we know some crafty contractors or NCOs have been making very good money off of selling "spare" parts - just like we saw when Russia first tried to invade Ukraine...

[ClumsyPilot]

Nukes are the only thing keeping corrupt ruling class and their ambitions in check. On either side of ideological divide.

It’s the only weapon that’s going to hit them along with the foot soldiers

[mywittyname]

> both parties

I'm sorry, but only one "party" is comprised of fascist plutocrats speed-running the end of democracy in the USA.

The USA and world would be a vastly different place had a different party maintained power in the USA 10 years ago.

[runarberg]

As I see it, one party is comprised of fascist plutocrats, and the other party is comprised of their enablers. In dictatorships the latter is called controlled opposition, I don‘t know what the latter is called in a democracy, but in absence of a better word “both parties” gets the meaning across IMO.

[martythemaniak]

I honestly wonder what world folks like you live in. The US is currently at war, repeatedly threatening several other places and engaged in several costly trade wars. From my Canadian perspective, you are a danger and a menace. China is a commodity supplier. Do the war crimes your country is currently committing not register for you at all? The daily threats, insults, and economic attacks on your 'allies', does that register?

China supports Russia in its war formally, but practically it sells Ukraine whatever it needs, because a weak vassal-like Russia is very much in their interests. The US is far, far more outspoken and active supporter of Russia in this war.

Finally, there will be no hot war with China. They'll likely blockade and invade Taiwan before the end of the decade, but the US will not do anything, partly because it'll be exhausted from it's never ending middle east wars, partly because it'll only take a small bribe to get Trump to back off. He's genuinely fond of dictators like Xi.

[sroussey]

Or… war with China is inevitable if only to keep the gap in military capabilities. There is a thinking to mow down their military while we still can in some circles. Like those in power currently. Scary.

[Balinares]

I don't think I would characterize this last era as one of global peace.

[solumunus]

I’m not convinced that it’s a bad thing. What is your actual argument?

[GlickWick]

My argument is that a major world power is pushing towards global conflict by simultaneously funding the conquest of Ukraine while building its own invasion fleet for Taiwan. Allowing them to also destabilize us internally is not exactly a good idea.

[mikem170]

> funding the conquest of Ukraine

It is well known that China is still engaged in trade with Russia- oil and gold going one way, drones and weapon components going the other.

But you said funding, and I assume you meant things like grants or loans. Do you have any sources for that? I could only find one that was attributed to indirect open source intelligence, nothing specific.

[GlickWick]

Trade is funding.

[mikem170]

Russia has been trading with a number of countries[0]. Mostly China, but also significantly with India, Turkey and the EU, and in much lesser amounts with 30+ other countries, including the US, the UK, UAE, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, etc.

I don't know if the above data helps to make your original point or not. Would you say that all those countries are funding the Russian war against Ukraine? Perhaps they do so for a combination of various reasons - energy and food needs, business profits, other self-interests, don't care, etc.

Wouldn't a country pushing for global conflict - really global - sow disorder by doing things like: break up alliances, threaten annexations, back illiberal poitical movements, disrupt shipping, disrupt free trade, disrupt energy supplies, start and foment regional wars, etc? Given that all countries tend to do things like this to one extent or another, how many of these things has China done, and how does that compare to other similarly capable countries?

I would say that China is asserting itself as a regional power, like with a navy that threatens Taiwan but can't project power much further than that, wouldn't turn into a global conflict unless other global powers feel so threatened they make it one. Maybe just a play on fear, for power and profit. War-mongering. Wouldn't be the first time.

EDIT: And look at how China has been "funded" China (via trade) over the last three decades... ironic!

[0] https://www.bruegel.org/dataset/russian-foreign-trade-tracke... (summary imports/exports by country in stacked graphs at bottom of page)

[kaibee]

> Allowing them to also destabilize us internally is not exactly a good idea.

The US destablized itself internally. China did not force the US to export its manufacturing base. It did not force the US to invade Iraq. It did not force the US to create a housing market bubble. It did not force the US to create massive income and wealth inequality. It did not force the US to supress transitioning away from oil towards cheap renewables. It did not force the US start a global oil shortage by invading Iran.

That having found itself at the tail of 25 years of poor financial planning, the US decided to go double-or-nothing by betting on LLMs to bail out the economy... does not mean that China has to fold its hand.

[SecretDreams]

I thought you were talking about the US for a minute...

[GlickWick]

The US is building a Taiwan invasion fleet?

[tsimionescu]

No, the US is actively invading Iran, by ship and by air. And they've invaded Venezuela. And they're actively supporting Israel's invasion of Lebanon and Gaza. And they're bombing a few more countries now and then, especially in Africa.

China is not actively involved in any war at all. They may be supporting Russia with resources, but it's nowhere near the level of material and diplomatic support that the USA is providing to Israel's genocide and war of aggression on Lebanon.

[solumunus]

How is it destabilising? Do you purely mean China have exposed ill thought out investments? That’s capitalism my guy. The market is working as intended.

When the investments fail there will be volatility but it’s hardly existential for the US. Open models are good for the whole world, I would argue it’s a net positive for individuals.

[chews]

Wow, what happened to no holds barred American capitalism? Is it bad when the Chinese somehow do it better? The US stateowning US Steal, Intel, and possibly openai is no different than the Chinese ownership model… and before the US took stakes in the companies they were just bankrolling them as customers SpaceX Oracle etal.

If life is a meritocracy, you gotta give it to the Chinese for their immense growth and improvement of living from agricultural poverty to technical supremacy. I don't want to hear the they stole our IP argument either, because all math is borrowed from something else. Distillation is innovation, in booze and in models.

[1234letshaveatw]

"what happened to no holds barred American capitalism?" you mean the strawman that never existed?

[chews]

Unlike the xenophobia

[Tostino]

Ask yourself, who seems to be the destabilizing force if you take a step back and look at the state of things objectively?

There is some blame on all sides for sure, not saying it's black and white...but come on.

[johnsmith1840]

Almost all current world events as of now are directly tied to the fact that the west is in active freakout mode over china building a army large enough to attack the entire world. Iran and venuzuela are a direct response to it.

1. China is actively genociding an entire ethnic people.

2. They are actively building a military larger and faster than any country on earth in all of history.

3. They are actively threatening ALL of their neighbors with war. Actively attacking their ships and building military bases in other countries territory.

4. China's open stated goals are to conquer and control its neighbors and every single step over the last 10 years is proof of that.

[OrvalWintermute]

You left out the bodypart business they are now in too.

[GlickWick]

I think the major destabilizing force is the country that has been building the infrastructure for a hot war over Taiwan for the last decade while simultaneously blatantly funding the conquest of Ukraine.

The US stupidly withdrawing from the world stage is definitely making this worse, of course, but it is not the catalyst. It's unfortunately a very likely side effect of a social media campaign by the same actor to make said hot war easier to win.

[henry2023]

Hey, we started another war and are funding the most destabilizing force in the world but look at this theoretical war …

[p-e-w]

In the decade during which you claim China has been preparing for a hot war, the United States invaded multiple countries and waged hot wars on three continents.

It’s ridiculous to compare China to the US when it comes to warmongering. They’re not even in the same ballpark.

[GlickWick]

Yeah, the US is not an incredible actor, but China is funding the most brutal war in modern history (the invasion of Ukraine) in order to provide a smokescreen for their own invasion.

[tsimionescu]

The Ukraine war is large and terrible, but its nowhere near comparable in brutality to the genocide in Gaza, that the US is funding, providing weapons for, and protecting diplomatically.

[4wsn]

It's literally on their border and the history is akin to if The South established its own nation state in Cuba after the Civil War and China became its ally.

At least admit the double standard. I don't mind realpolitik but it's so tedious when it's not plainly stated and there's this veneer of civility.

Yes, the US is allowed to do whatever it wants to in South America. No, other nation states don't have a sphere of geographic influence if the US doesn't want them to.

[stickfigure]

Taiwan has been self governing for longer than almost everyone that lives there has been alive. It's also a vibrant democracy.

If you care about democracy and human rights, it's morally reprehensible NOT to support Taiwan. We can debate the ethics of intervening in strongman dictatorships like Venezuela, Cuba, or Iran, but Taiwan is clear.

[doctorwho42]

Cool, and it's morally reprehensible to NOT support drastic action to curb the worst effects of climate change, and start trying our very best to prepare our children and grandchildren for an adulthood where they will be clawing back minor things we take for granted even in today's world of regular continent spanning forest fire smoke pollution.

[4wsn]

"Democracy and human rights", "strongman dictatorships". Dear God this rhetoric has aged like milk. I can't believe we ever fell for it.

[duplessitous]

Despite withdrawing from our role on the world stage, we have in no way adapted isolationist like policies. We kidnapped the leader of another country, we are bombing Iran with impunity and will begin striking civilian infrastructure as a response to terrorist within that country, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/22/trum...

China didn't make us do this any more than they made us bomb civilian fishing boats in South America. We are a major destabilizing force at the moment, China existing does not somehow negate the actions we take of our own free will.

Refusing to acknowledge our role in destabilizing the globe at the moment is a level of infantilization that I, and many others, find unacceptable. We are all adults, China is responsible for their role and the US is responsible for its role. A social media campaign is not forcing the folks in Washington to drop bombs on Iranian civilian infrastructure, the jack asses in Washington did all of this on their own

[GlickWick]

Nobody is refusing to acknowledge our role in destabilizing things. This is a thread about why the US might be afraid of an also bad-actor rival funding a huge proxy war against it controlling major technology.

[duplessitous]

I mean if you want to get back on the topic of this thread, it has nothing to do with what you just said. The thread started by discussing AI distillation and this was your initial comment, just to get us back on track

> Our biggest geopolitical rival that's been threatening a hot war also distilling the things we build is not a good thing

They didn't distill Fable, it is impossible on any timeline. So where do we go next, the start of this thread is a complete dead-end as it is asserting a falsehood

This was the comment i responded to so we can get back on track to that comment if you'd like

> I think the major destabilizing force is the country that has been building the infrastructure for a hot war over Taiwan for the last decade while simultaneously blatantly funding the conquest of Ukraine.

We are refusing to aid Ukraine and actively antagonize their leader. We are kidnapping leaders from other countries. We are bombing civilian infrastructure. We are the major destabilizing force, not the one planning a hypothetical invasion

[JumpCrisscross]

> who seems to be the destabilizing force if you take a step back and look at the state of things objectively?

All of them. Pretending there is a benevolent bully among Russia, China and America is baseless.

This is probably the strongest moral argument for open-weight models. It decouples AI, somewhat, from military-industrial might.

[barbazoo]

This is proof the US propaganda is working. How much damage has China done recently militarily?

[JumpCrisscross]

> This is proof the US propaganda is working

This is a thought-terminating cliche. (The folks telling you to stop being sheeple are unusually consistently claimed independent thinkers.)

> How much damage has China done recently militarily?

Exempting the Iran war, which has no justification, as much as America. We’re both backing proxies. (Though we’ve had a while since we shot at or annexed our neighbours.)

[advael]

It seems pretty silly to answer a question about military intervention by insisting that the major instance of military intervention by a world power that's happened in the last year shouldn't be counted

[mathisfun123]

> Our biggest geopolitical rival

People on here have zero consistency in their worldviews.

Ask any capitalism zealot (ie hners) whether markets are zero sum and they'll wax poetical about "creating value". But then talk to them about Chinese competition and suddenly everything is a rivalrous good lolol.

I hate to break it to you, your so called rival won this game decades ago when you undercut the working class to make a buck and laundered cheap Chinese labor as productivity. So if you believe the Chinese are rivals um welcome to "reap what you sew" <shrug>.

[GlickWick]

I'm not the "hive mind" of HN or whatever. Individuals hold unique opinions.

Yes, China is a rival. No, they have not won. Their economy is in a lot of trouble, likely far worse than the shape of the US's currently. That situation may accelerate a hot war though, as has historically been the case globally.

[tsimionescu]

People have been claiming this since the 2000s. There are Economist articles from 2005 predicting an imminent collapse of China's economy. China has only grown more rapidly since then.

[stanleykm]

You need to stop watching those “China is gonna collapse any minute now…” youtube videos

[GlickWick]

I don’t. I do read major reputed economists though, and they are not exactly bullish on China.

Don’t create fictional versions of the people you argue with. This is the second time in a span of 10 minutes that you’ve done it. It completely undermines any attempt to discuss something, and drops your integrity to zero.

[drdexebtjl]

Are any of those major reputed economists Russian or Chinese by any chance?

Or are they just Western economists repeating Western bias under a veil of objectivity?

[nekusar]

Yeah I'm seeing how USA vs China is going.

USA: https://www.linkedin.com/videos/tpopomaronis_ive-seen-some-e...

China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUbbBdSGHE8

But... China is definitely copying... Hahahahha

[Avicebron]

The term you're looking for is 网络水军.

[crote]

China is only getting stronger. They have captured basically the entire electronics industry - except a handful of cutting-edge chips. They have captured the solar panel industry. They are significantly outperforming the traditional brands when it comes to all kinds of BEVs.

In all the ways that matter, China is rapidly racing towards or even past the West. We've been pretending that it is possible to remain relevant on the world stage while only offering services and a handful of luxury goods. A China without the West would be a painful transition, but the West without China? A massacre.

China hasn't won yet primarily because the West hasn't even figured out it is in a competition. We're getting our asses kicked and don't even realize it yet! Worst of all? The Western capitalists created China, all for a few cents of shareholder value...

[mathisfun123]

> Their economy is in a lot of trouble, likely far worse than the shape of the US's currently

Source: trust me bro