[teravor]

    > The NSA and the CIA with the same models, on the other hand, would use them exclusively for the good of the common man.

has anyone ever made this absurd argument?

the real argument is that CCP will leverage AI against US interests, which is obvious. it's weird how so many people pretend that they are citizens of the world and above it all.

[john_strinlai]

>the real argument is that CCP will leverage AI against US interests

many people believe that the US will leverage AI against US citizen's interests.

[slfnflctd]

Indeed. It already has. In particular I remember several extremely offensive slop pictures and videos being posted by someone in the White House. And I'm certain that's just the tip of the shitberg.

[impulser_]

Yeah, but unlike China we have laws and ways to fight against it. China can and will do whatever the fuck they want they don't have to listen to the people of China.

[sanderjd]

The problem is that at the current moment with the current administration, it does not seem like we do "have laws and ways to fight against it".

I'm more optimistic about the likelihood of the US system of government to heal itself than that statement might seem to imply. But it's just also the case that at the current moment in the US, the rule of law is very much under threat. And as your comment suggests, that same rule of law is a very important thing to the way of life in the US. It's a very bad situation that we've allowed ourselves to slouch into.

[impulser_]

Well that what the people voted for. In a few months you can replace these people that allow this. Good luck replacing anyone in the goverment of China.

[sanderjd]

This is not an argument that the Chinese system of government is better than the US system. Like I said, I'm more optimistic than a lot of people I know that the US will be able to pull out of the tailspin we've been in for the past decade. But it's also imminently reasonable to believe that this episode has raised real questions about the durability of the rule of law in this country.

[sodapopcan]

> this episode has raised real questions about the durability of the rule of law in this country.

Ya, I'm not American, but I have seen people say "we can vote them out" a few times now. Assuming the democrats take the next election, they are going to have a massive mess to clean up with much of the damage not even being reversible. With peoples' fickle nature and seeming that is a very big right-leaning population in the US, there's a non-zero chance the Republicans just get voted back in four years later. Whose to say?

[sodapopcan]

The US has been doing whatever the fuck it wants without listening to its people lately, though.

[impulser_]

Well good thing we have elections.

[forafistfulof]

You have "representative democracy". It is not the same as democracy, whatever you had been told in school. And since 2001 it is painfully clear: whichever representative you had, eventually he went to throw bombs on people, and no one asked joe if he liked that.

[sodapopcan]

Every four years!

[svachalek]

Largely hypothetical, not very effective ways to fight against it. Meanwhile we have the entire Pacific Ocean and US Military between us and China.

[vhantz]

The american state routinely shoots and kills its own citizens in broad daylight with 0 repercussions. Thinking it answers to its citizens is severely deluded.

[krapp]

but but but we have guns...

[cogman10]

> has anyone ever made this absurd argument?

Yes, anthropic just put forward this argument. It's the whole point of the article.

I agree, it's absurd.

[NicuCalcea]

The fact that much of the world is as unconcerned with the interests of the US as with those of China, if not less so, should give pause to Americans.

As a citizen of neither country, Chinese open models are in my interest more than US closed models. My only concerns is that if/when Chinese AI becomes more powerful, they too will have little incentive to make their best models open weights.

[sanderjd]

Actually this would be pretty great, because it would incentivize US labs to pursue the open weights strategy for the same reasons China is currently.

I genuinely think that this is what the trends and incentives point toward: Competition to develop open weights models and to develop efficient inference hardware to run them.

This would be good! But government policy could very easily screw it up.

[alightsoul]

That's if American models fall behind Chinese ones. Why would Americans open source when they can create a Monopoly?

[sanderjd]

Yes that's the "this" I was referring to.

I guess a day later I don't really agree with my own comment that this would be "great", but it would be a silver lining of that happening.

[voganmother42]

Right, I wonder if anyone who heard: “the Democratic Party is America's "greatest enemy,"” believes they are represented by US Interests? Withholding disaster aid to your perceived opposition. What are those interests again? What are the shared values again? Cruelty and corruption? Sounds unifying.

[____mr____]

Yes, this is the exact argument dario is implicitly making by saying that government repression and bioweapons from Chinese models are a danger and then cooperating with Palantir/DOW/US government

[nicce]

-> the real argument is that CIA will leverage AI against China interests, which is obvious. it's weird how so many people pretend that they are citizens of the world and above it all.

Works for both ways, which is fair?

[alightsoul]

The argument itself is not necessary. But it's American exceptionalism which is the same thing Dario has.

[Cider9986]

US citizens have a much greater threat from their own government than a government an ocean away.

See, the Snowden Leaks.

[blackqueeriroh]

> US citizens have a much greater threat from their own government than a government an ocean away.

> See, the Snowden Leaks

Are you saying the Snowden Leaks are more dangerous than a world where the CCP is a global hegemon?

If your focus as an American is being safe as an American, what the US does in other countries is far less of a concern to you than what other countries might do to the US.

In the case of the CCP, they have and will attempt to destabilize the United States of America and in turn make life measurably worse for Americans because they wish to be the world’s hegemon.

Fundamentally, Americans are safer when the United States is the number one power than when China is the number one power.

[fidotron]

> If your focus as an American is being safe as an American, what the US does in other countries is far less of a concern to you than what other countries might do to the US.

There's a causal relationship between "what other countries might do to the US" and "what the US does in other countries" which you seem quite keen to ignore.

[alightsoul]

This is an issue for the US exclusively. The rest of the world does not want a hegemon whether American or Chinese.

[skywhopper]

China, Russia, and plenty of other countries have all been actively and successfully destabilizing the US for well over a decade now. To the point that your argument about who is less a threat to Americans depends heavily on the skin color, religion, and ethnicity of those Americans.

[protocolture]

>the real argument is that CCP will leverage AI against US interests

Good. US Interests don't align with humanity.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Global development metrics have all moved in the right direction since the US became quasi-hegemonic in 1945

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HNL96gAbgAA83tW.png?name=orig

[protocolture]

Of course nothing else significant happened during that period.

[Barrin92]

>it's weird how so many people pretend that they are citizens of the world

97% of the world aren't US citizens and if you've taken a look at pew research surveys (or travelled to the so-called global south) you're going to be in for a bit of a shock (https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/people-in-many...)

The competition and sheer output of China has driven prosperity, it's the largest trading partner of 150 countries, the US of 50. People don't need to be citizens of the world, they just need to rationally look at their own interests. China is driving down prices of technologies making them available in countries that never could afford first world prices, the US is driving the them into an energy crisis and bankruptcy.

[skywhopper]

Dario Amodei Literally makes this exact argument in the OP.