[twelvechairs]

Also everything hes saying about China (and other actors) many outside the USA would say about the USA.

The solution of a global arms race of state vs state with integrated statist corporations as the best outcome for end users sure is a choice though

[rustyhancock]

He's also completely missed what many of us see as the primary the issue, HF was attacked by a US frontier model.

HF could not be helped by US frontier models because of the "safety" features they have.

HF had to use an open model from china.

Anthropic wants to add those "safety" features to open models - especially from china.

End result would be HF hack would have continued atleast until the Monday that OpenAI engineers finally walked back into work.

[ppap3]

I'm very confident that it was staged and coordinated. This propaganda started because they cannot evolve their models further. See Fable and Sol, they are lame. They seem incredible at first but the more you use you can see the trickery. It is a matter of time for someone to prove they are marginally better only because they inject more information to the harness at server side.

[jimmydoe]

I’m also into this conspiracy theory: ai created bug, ai hacked it, ai fixed it.

[taude]

just like ai will create amazing tests suits for the broken code it writes, if one isn't carefully watching...

EDIT: of course it probably helps to have an up front tdd test suite, but often isn't the case.

[ppap3]

Live overflow released the video today about it. It is very compelling but I guess there are holes on their hypothesis as well.

The summary is that an instance was running on certain benchmarks without any limits or supervision and the AI decided to cheat by exploiting a silly series of vunlns.

[Loquebantur]

The public narrative around conspiracy theories is baffling for sure: what rational basis is there for assuming them wrong? Often none.

Incentive and ability are what should be looked at. There, things get far more interesting: what is the current state of AI employed by the US intelligence agencies and what do they use it for?

Having the public convinced, their "superiors" would only do everything in their best interest, even without anybody knowing for sure, is Huxley's Brave New World in real life.

[ppap3]

Have you seen any of the emails Mr alt-tab-man sent regarding his enterprises? That guy is worse than fetid trash

[convolvatron]

that's some real anti-truth you've got going on there. because we shouldn't assume that others are acting in our best interest, that any random assertion that there is collusion against us should be by default accepted as the truth.

shouldn't any reasonable person when presented with a line of thought that has no substantiation at all conclude that they just can't reasonably be expected to support or reject the theory?

[Loquebantur]

? That's total nonsense.

Positions of power attract people who want to use that power for their own gain. They abuse it regularly, whether it's politics, enterprises or even charity.

To assume, that somehow wouldn't happen when you don't look is beyond absurd. Of course it does.

So I pointed explicitly at US intelligence agencies, because there corruption is rampant and oversight virtually non-existent, respectively itself involved in the corruption.

What you suppose there is a grotesque "don't ask don't tell"-complicity.

In reality, trust has to be earned and that deservingness has to be verified.

[hoppp]

Everything in this space is manufactured, the plebs is fed very deliberate information for manipulation. I don't think there is a debate about it. All the PR stuff is marketing.

[rob74]

I case you're wondering, HF = Hugging Face

[littlecorner]

Every time I read Hugging Face, my brain first jumps to facehugger from Alien. I really wish they chose a different name...

[rob74]

Actually I wrote something similar yesterday as a reply to the (since flagged) comment below. Glad to see that more people have this association. But apparently the founders of Hugging Face didn't have it, or else they probably would have chosen some other "friendly" emoji for their startup (which initially developed a chatbot for teenagers - that makes the choice of name feel even creepier if you ask me).

[tessellated]

Same here. The creature seems more fitting than the emoji too.

[imrozim]

Worth checking, elsewhere in this thread someone points out glm only assessed the damage after the fact, it didn't stop the attack, and Hf apprently never sought access to a trusted defender program with a closed model either the open model saved them farming might not hold up.

[mafuy]

They wrote themselves that before the incident they were denied from the trust program...

[b112]

I think the fair nuance here is, an administration which used Executive Orders to force guardrails, meaning US companies must retain them, even if they might want to drop them now.

And on top of that, with low/no guardrails, people call you a child pornographer(grok), so the public is also against it. Yet mysteriously few complain about Chinese open models being child pornographers.

So even if your goal isn't ethical, but just fiscal, it's reasonable to say there are two standards. And to complaint in some way.

I don't think banning is going to work, that's just silly. And over the next few years, everyone and their dog will have local GPU compute to train locally. People have home labs, the bar isn't that high, and eventually large text datasets will escape from Anthropic and other companies, allowing for comparable training.

It's a genie that's not going back in the bottle, the bottle is smashed.

The only reasonable outcome would be section 230 style carveouts so that there is zero liability for anything a model does.

Because having guardrails on corporate models barely months ahead of open ones, which will never be restricted, is entirely pointless.

[hgoel]

>child pornographer(grok)

People call grok that because deviants were abusing grok's ability to edit images and post them publicly on X to strip people - including children - of their clothes, from their public photos. Then when there was backlash, Elon laughed it off. It took half the world opening investigations against X for violations of existing regulations for action to be taken.

The leniency that internet companies get in terms of dealing with illegal content comes with the expectation that they're making reasonable efforts to control the distribution of said content. X, and Grok, were actively supporting the production and distribution of the content in public.

It is very different from someone creating such images in a private account, and definitely very different from someone using a local model to do it.

[b112]

My entire post was how it is unreasonable to have a dual standard, and my point was it's really irrelevant if it's a model you download and use locally, or if it's a model hosted remotely, or hosted and created remotely. You're not really providing any sensible reason where the line is, except "public company", which is, again, the entire point I'm making.

The only realistic, non-double standard is that the creator of the model should be 100% responsible. What on earth does it have to do with who's hosting it?

And by this metric, aren't all the uncensored models on huggingface, child pornographers? And if so, why not? Provide tangible, real, sensible reasons please, and after all, isn't hugging face a company?

You know, people are all over the place on this. I see people complaining about guardrails, then in the next breath complaining there aren't enough. Complaining that open models are the thing, but then creating double standards.

So once again, what is your actual reason why it's different?

[hgoel]

It isn't about "public company", the line is "posted to a public social media platform, with the owner indicating amusement".

If someone uses something one of OpenAI's hosted models to generate illegal content, it isn't automatically spread to anyone that clicks on the post the original image is from. On top of that, OpenAI does not explicitly endorse the use of their models for such activities the way Musk did.

If someone uses a local model to generate illegal content, same thing applies.

I have a hard time believing that you're arguing in good faith. The differences are so blatantly obvious and they don't even require any discussion about guardrails. Grok was being used to edit images and post them on public social media. The technology to edit images has existed for decades now. So here's a direct analogy via Photoshop:

1. In the case of a local model: Someone using a local image editor to edit photos into illicit material and manually distributing them.

2. In the case of a hosted model: Someone using a cloud image editor to edit photos into illicit material and manually distributing them.

3. In the case of Grok: Someone using a cloud image editor to edit photos into illicit material, the cloud image editor automatically distributing it to the public, and the owner of the editor endorsing the material as an exemplar of what their editor is capable of.

In 1 and 2, the editor (ie the AI) was just a neutral tool. In 3 the issue is that the company explicitly endorsed and distributed the material, no longer neutral. This is why it's reputation is of being a CP machine.

[b112]

The leniency that internet companies get in terms of dealing with illegal content comes with the expectation that they're making reasonable efforts to control the distribution of said content.

Your words. Grok was an example, the owner is irrelevant in the discussion.

[wongarsu]

The "child pornography" thing was about image generation, which people for better or worse have very different moral standards for than for text generation. There is very little pushback against grok being willing to write explicit descriptions of sex, or giving security advise.

Though I think your overall point still stands, and at least Grok's twitter bot has received a lot of criticism for pure text too (Mecha hitler comes to mind)

[notahacker]

It also must be seen in the context that the open weight models aren't commercially associated with a popular distribution site where people share the images, the people behind them aren't public figures seen as encouraging the use of the model for "undressing" (albeit in a funny way not related to minors), and they haven't yet responded to questions about what can be produced using their tool by proposing guardrails but only for non-paying users...

Open weight models get scrutinised in a different way, also linked to perceptions of their developers' bias, like the tests to see whether they refuse to answer questions on certain historical events at Tiananmen Square

[HappMacDonald]

> There is very little pushback against grok being willing to write explicit descriptions of sex, or giving security advise.

John Oliver disagrees with this

[ethbr1]

> And over the next few years, everyone and their dog will have local GPU compute to train locally. People have home labs, the bar isn't that high, and eventually large text datasets will escape from Anthropic and other companies, allowing for comparable training.

You're vastly underestimating the scaling problem here.

Things that would need to be true for your statement to be valid:

   - Model intelligence doesn't increase with model size
   - Model intelligence doesn't increase with training set size
   - Novel architecture completely decouples model intelligence scaling from hardware scaling
   - Residential electricity is as cheap as industrial electricity
   - RAM and GPU supply outpace demand

[Barbing]

> child pornographer(grok)

Further reading: XAI Bets on Grok's Racy Side, The Information, Jun 24, 2026

&: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/xai-cant-deny-gr...

  lawyers cited a 2026 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) report confirming that 90 percent of xAI’s CyberTipline reports “were not actionable by law enforcement because xAI declined to include user information that would allow law enforcement to track and locate perpetrators.”

[ppap3]

Well... They are all part of a "high well regarded" group of people of a security committee that has no specialists or whatsoever, only trillionaires on a round table

[spaceman_2020]

All my adult life, China has given me cheap material goods. Whatever they do in their country is their own problem. They’ve never interfered in my politics or started any wars

[vlovich123]

> They’ve never interfered in my politics or started any wars

But they have. I dont know what specific country you are referring to but China has interfered with US elections as well as Canada, Taiwan, and Australia in addition to many many others.

They’ve annexed Tibet (1950), fought India (1962) and Vietnam (1979) among others and more recently in 2020 a deadly skirmish with India. They’ve generally shifted their focus to cyber military actions but you’d have to be pretty naive they won’t start to exercise military control over Taiwan when/if they get a chance.

[don_esteban]

Now compare that to what the USA did in the same time frame. Pay special attention to people killed (either directly, or indirectly) outside of their own borders. Who should you be worried about?

[minraws]

Two evils just means there are two evils. We don't have to value one more than the other.

Wrongs don't negate each other.

[wongarsu]

If you have the choice between AI models created by one evil or the other, it does feel relevant which you consider to be the lesser evil

[repler]

That’s a pathetic moral band-aid.

All technology can be used for good or used for evil depending on who is using it and how. From fire to internal combustion engines to nuclear energy.

[bambax]

> We don't have to value one more than the other.

Yes we do. We should evaluate threats and choose our allies carefully.

[guax]

Correct, but people are not wrong in being more concerned about the evil biting than the one keeping it chill.

[rob74]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. As the saying goes: "better the devil you know". China can at least so far be relied upon to not shoot itself in the foot (and take the whole word with it). The same cannot be said of other great powers like the US (under Trump, for more reasons than I'm willing to list here) and Russia (with Putin's completely harebrained invasion of Ukraine). China can prove me wrong any time by invading Taiwan, but I still hope they don't. Of course, if we try to keep them away from advanced chip technology, that would be further motivation to invade (although TSMC is unlikely to survive an invasion - even if it did survive the actual conflict, it would probably be destroyed or evacuated to avoid it falling into Chinese hands? But I don't want to see the hardware prices after such an event).

[roysting]

You should avoid agreeing with the narcissists that always use false equivalence, whataboutism, and goal post shifting the second you call them out.

You are allowing them to define a ridiculous standard by agreeing with them that not only is it in fact “two evils” but what qualifies as evil. They’ll tell you…always only when called out, mind you…all and any meddling (also something they will then define with the same kind of falls equivalence loop) is evils, when that is simply not true, not is any kind of effort to influence the same thing as actual meddling, not us it always evil.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point, the narcissistic personality or their little zombies in most cases will constantly shift and change things all to avoid you from being able to get a clear focus on the truth, something their explosively allergic to.

As an American child of the Empire with global perspective and very high access perspective, there is no other entity besides the cabal that controls the USA and acts flying its banner; that is more deadly, more meddling, more conniving, more evil, more supremacist, and more vile.

[minraws]

Given it's an internet forum, and people here can be anyone around the world, I understand your intent but people over index on the threat that ofc feels closer, rather than the threat that's significantly farther away.

But in general if you ask folks in south east Asia you will find they are likely to be more concerned with China than US except this maddening Oil Crisis.

Although I think people now are very afraid/wary of both evils.

The US govt should think why people in all parts of the world including US itself feel just if not more threatened by them, than China and other evils we have floating around.

I would like to hope my American friends didn't vote for this madness or maybe they did I have read DHH's tweets.

[khriss]

Sadly, we live in a decidedly imperfect world. I don't think there is a single completely good person on the planet, let alone a country.

[tempfile]

Nobody said they negate each other. The comment being discussed is fearmongering about China and is very relaxed about the USA. All we're saying is you should be either afraid of both or relaxed about both. China is not worse than the US.

[LtWorf]

It is perfectly fine to say that a person who killed one person is bad but not as bad as the one who killed thousands.

I eagerly await for the USA citizens to downvote this in about 5 hours.

[teiferer]

> Who should you be worried about?

For Americans the answer is obvious since they are biased in this.

For everybody else, your question is valid.

[saidnooneever]

Dont pretend americans dont need to be afraid of american government. look at the state of the place. A lot of them arent exactly thrilled with their current environment, job market, education, prisonsystem, gun laws, food industry, healthcare etc. etc.

the question is valid for anyone who cares for more than their own ass

[panicinducer]

I'm an American, but I do not think the American government being strong helps me or my fellow Americans. The less America can project its cultural and military power on the rest of the world, the better.

[fragmede]

There are different kinds of strengths. There was a past American government that was strong enough to stamp out inequality and fight for civil rights. To overturn oppression and give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. That's a strong American government I could get behind.

[Gud]

The American government has caused the death of a lot more Americans than China has.

[clarionbell]

Cultural revolution?

[Foobar8568]

Considering who has been their president for 2 terms, and most likely a third one, I really wonder.

All my life I heard American boasting their constitutions but now it's as worthy of my toilet papers.

[neal_jones]

Turns out the whole system is quite fragile when faced with people who have no interest in anyone besides themselves

[neuroticnews25]

I see this narration repeated here, but to me it seems Americans are actually one of the most self-cynical nations. Here in Poland we still actually believe in the superiority of the western values of freedom, democracy and individualism. "People roughly like us" vs "insect hivemind" is the simplest choice ever.

[nlehuen]

Please reconsider this comment. Calling one side superior and the other side insects really doesn't help with the discussion, and dehumanizing a whole swath of people really has dark consequences.

[Doch88]

Speak for yourself, in Italy we are also closer to US "culture", but I do see the US as a bigger threat than China, simply because it's closer and it directly affects our politics.

[nswango]

This sounds like you are urging people not to disregard racism when comparing superpower regimes.

[vector_spaces]

For a concrete example, consider e.g. Operation Condor which displaced my own family

> Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor; Portuguese: Operação Condor) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America. Operation Condor formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. The operation was backed by the United States, which financed the covert operations. France is alleged to have collaborated but has denied involvement. The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

[isoprophlex]

Both of them.

[vlovich123]

Whataboutism isn’t a useful game. The claim was that they don’t interfere with politics of external countries. They do.

The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Believing it’ll stay there is naive.

Playing the moral superiority game is uninteresting in either direction. Games of power inherently are devoid of morality.

[darkwater]

Ok, let's follow your rules then. If we remove morality, we are left with what? Pure numbers? If you want to be technically correct China foreign interventions are > 0, indeed. But the scale of US actions is, I would dare to say, at least one magnitude bigger. An empire should be judged for how they treat their own citizens, their allies and their enemies. And if we do that, maybe China and the US are not so different.

[vlovich123]

I’m confused. You start off like you’re going to disagree and then end with the same conclusion I was trying to suggest. Keep in mind I was replying to subvenir who said “eh China not bad - they’ve file nothing wrong to me”

[randunel]

I'd like you to familiarise yourself with a legal and societal principle we use in civil law countries:

> de minimis non curat praetor

Which basically means judges are not interested in minor disputes. When you add the USA to the mix, China's actions pale in comparison to the point of being negligible, no point in discussing them given the scale of USA's warmongering, overseas and local crimes. "They never interfered in [...]" is an exaggeration which shows the lack of importance of China's crimes when compared to the USA's, that's all.

The "whataboutism" here isn't a deflection strategy, it shows the hypocrisy and correctly minimises the scale of China's actions in comparison to the hypocrites'.

[nswango]

Whataboutism is a very useful game to reveal whether people are being honest or not.

If someone is vocally complaining about country A doing some oppressive activity, while ignoring country B doing 100x the same activity, the comparison does not forgive or excuse country A, or make them right or admirable.

But it does allow us to conclude that the person complaining is biased. Either they don't care about the oppressive activity and want to attack country A for some other reason. Or they have a particular fondness for country B and will never accept that it does wrong. Or some variation on these.

[vlovich123]

Except it’s op posting whataboutism not me - their claim is that China has done nothing wrong to them with the implication that the USA has. I was highlighting that China indeed likely has done the things they’re complaining about.

[Cookingboy]

>The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now.

Come on, are you seriously equating hacking to literally bombing and killing people? That's just arguing in very bad faith.

Calling hacking "warfare" is just intellectually dishonest, if not downright disgusting toward the actual victims of American wars.

[dominotw]

how is this not a non sequitur in your head. genuine question.

[stogot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[cmpxchg8b]

Whataboutism is juvenile.

[tempfile]

This is not whataboutism.

[jb1991]

“China is evil.”

—- “But look at the United States! What about that?”

Is this not just whataboutism? It never adds much to the discussion.

[Doch88]

It would be whataboutism if it was a random Joe saying "China is evil" not literally a company that 1) is in the US 2) has a strong influence in the government and legislations affecting them and their competition.

In this case it's just pointing out the propaganda and the contradiction.

[spaceman_2020]

The Indian wars were border skirmishes at most. Literally 2,000 soldiers dead on both sides combined by official count. Very few civilian casualties.

The 2020 skirmish was way smaller with single digit casualties. Again, almost no civilian casualties because it's a largely empty region in the first place

You really can't compare this to the kind of wars America has started. Casualties - both civilian and military - stood in the hundreds of thousands

[microtonal]

And then we haven't included Bibi-enabling, allowing a genocide to take place and then suggesting it is a real estate opportunity.

[spaceman_2020]

I mean most of Chinese "wars" have been border issues. Most of these border issues themselves stem from badly drawn borders post colonial withdrawal. These are understandable, if not justifiable - countries tug at each other to figure out where their territories start/end. A hostile neighbor at your borders is a legitimate national threat

America's wars have been in countries so far away that they could've never posed any threat whatsoever to America as a nation.

Really not the same thing

[vlovich123]

> America's wars have been in countries so far away that they could've never posed any threat whatsoever to America as a nation

That’s fallacious reasoning that ignores how easy travel is and how cheap an attack can cause massive damage. 9/11 was massive attack from countries far away. We regularly see commercial drones being used in warfare causing huge damage and casualties. There was the 2012 terrorist attack on our CIA facilities in Benghazi.

Terrorism entrenched abroad impacts our security. Is the response we take incorrect and makes it worse / are there things we do to provoke this? Some things yes, other things are like having Israel as an ally which is a culturally, socially and economically aligned power in the region even though it’s hated in the region.

Also don’t forget the US is a major maritime power. China is trying to be, Russia is not. Maritime powers force project more broadly because a) is the nature of being a maritime power b) you have to protect shipping to make sure trade routes are uninmpeded. B is particularly important as it also helps explain the wars (eg the Iran war is about the strait and trade and who collects money, not really about nuclear capabilities).

[potamic]

If you're making a case of this vs what the US has interfered with, it simply does not stack up. Of course it's naive to think they won't start interfering like the US once they gain the leverage, but to a neutral party it likely doesn't matter which of these two ends up as the superpower on the global stage.

[pell]

One, as bad as it is, has its biggest critics live and speak out freely. The other silences, imprisons or kills them.

[potamic]

With the butchering of the Correspondent's Dinner last week, it doesn't seem like things will be the way they were.

[jeltz]

Something which Trump wants to change. Trump has already done a lot of silence critical media and he wants to do more.

[RobotToaster]

Tibet was part of China since the Quing dynasty in the 17th century, it briefly declared independence during the chaos of the Chinese civil wars, but it was never recognised.

Vietnam is usually recognised as a low point in Chinese history.

There's been an ongoing border dispute between China and India for over 100 years, thanks to some questionable line drawing by the British.

Also, referring to the parent comment, of these only the border skirmish with India was within my lifetime.

[yekanchi]

in contrast this is USA's main job is to Interfere in any country it can in favor of its own goals. not related to what the people of that state really want.

north Americans must stay silent about interfering in other states internal issues.

[rikima_]

What people don't know is that China's "war" against Vietnam in 1979 was actually a pledge of allegiance to the United States, a way of demonstrating its stance.

This event was followed by the longest honeymoon period in Sino-US relations, which eventually lead to China's rise.

[21asdffdsa12]

They have colonies and generally aspire to become basically the old british empire as a longterm strategy? At least thats what they push with that "century of humiliation" comeback strategy internally..

[rithdmc]

Did anything else happen in Vietnam in the 70s?

[ksk23]

That is nothing compared to the us

[cpursley]

No new wars in 47 years is a pretty good run vs other major powers.

[21asdffdsa12]

Lets ask xinjang?

[Foobar8568]

Let's ask black people, minorities and foreigns with the wrong skin color in the US?

What about women too ? Especially in red states.

[well_ackshually]

Repression of their own citizens is another subject. It is of course highly problematic and should be condemned as much as possible, but in the same way that if the US decided to repress mormons violently, it remains internal affairs and not an imperialistic threat to the countries around them.

[dudefeliciano]

> it remains internal affairs and not an imperialistic threat

That's pre 1945 style thinking, which is coming back with a vengeance.

[cpursley]

I imagine they are better off and more developed than any of the Muslim regions the US has bombed the ever living crap of continuously over the past 50 years...

[jmyeet]

So I don't support the re-education camps that happened in Xinjiang. Exactly what happened here is still a bit of an unknown because unfortunately there's a ton of misinformation. Whatever did happen, you can go see yourself. It's not a closed region. There are a ton of Youtube videos of people going.

But I hate this talking point for one primary reason: almost nobody who brings it up actually cares about the Uyghurs. It's just a talkijng point.

How do I know this? Because of Palestine. If Benjamin Netanyahu turned around tomorrow and treated Palestinians as Uyghurs were and are treated and developed the region like China does today then he would win the Nobel Peace Prize and Palestinians would be unquestionably better off. It wouldn't be sufficient mind you.

Israel's crimes in Palestine are America's crimes because Israel could not exist without the economic and military support of the US, political cover in the UN and international community and the political will of Us domestically. It would collapse tomorrow if the US withdraw support.

So I don't want to hear a thing from China hawks and skeptics about Xinjiang unless they're louder what Israel is doing to the region.

[cpursley]

> But I hate this talking point for one primary reason: almost nobody who brings it up actually cares about the Uyghurs. It's just a talkijng point.

Exactly, it's just people parroting psyop narrative talking points, Taiwan is another. Repeat something enough and people will eventually believe it.

There's a reason other nations are choosing China over the US/EU (including Muslim and Turkish ones) - there's no moralizing, political requirements, nor bombs.

[greenchair]

Its called a cold war.

[teiferer]

> China has interfered with US elections

Wow, that newest of Trump's distraction talking points made it surprisingly quickly to the uncontended (?) and commonly accepted facts in HN conversations.

[vlovich123]

You’re misinformed. The Biden administration in 2020 declassified that Beijing has prepared to latch influence campaigns in 2020 but backed off. December 2023 a report was released that they had changed track and engaged in influence operations during the 2022 midterms. Biden’s administration also warned about influence operations in the 2024 election cycle. The Biden DOJ unsealed multiple indictments against Chinese intelligence officers, state-backed hackers (such as APT41), and illegal Ministry of State Security agents acting inside the U.S.

You’re very misinformed if you think Trump’s latest blathering are completely wrong. I generally don’t pay attention to him so I don’t know exactly how he lied or exaggerated but I’m sure he did. It doesn’t negate the real and active influence operations China is engaged in

[div]

You’re very misinformed if you think democrats and republicans arent playing the “election influence fiddle” in exactly the same way; legitimising the elections they won, casting doubt on those they lost, all while achieving the main goal of making sure the population doesnt forget who their so called enemies are.

[teiferer]

Lots of assumptions about what I think. I pointed out that Trump put the topic on the agenda a few days ago and now it comes up in HN comments. No more, no less. Whether it has merit is a different question. Point is that the reach of him setting topics goes far which is hard to deny.

[novoreorx]

I'm surprised to see that this hasn't received enough downvotes to be grayed out. It seems those who can downvote on HN mostly believe this BS

[severino]

> China has interfered with US elections

Wow. I bet we'll soon be reading on HN that Biden stole the elections back in 2020.

[Ancapistani]

No one who believed it definitely was has changed their mind, they've just at most gotten quiet about it.

No one who believed it definitely was not has changed their mind, they've just at most gotten quiet about it.

No one who believed it could have been but that the claim has not been proven have changed our minds, we've just decided that there's no way to know what actually happened.

[jmyeet]

"But Tibet!!!" has to be the most intellectually lazy pro-American imperialism argument, particularly when you consider the US history of regime change [1]. Heck, this unwinnable war we're fighting in Iran has a direct through line to not one but two such incidents, specifically the coup in 1953 and US involvement in the Islamic Revolution in 1979 (ie making sure the fundamentalists won instead of the communists). And weirdly a significant number of these puppets end up turning into enemies and far worse problems (eg Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden).

Tibet specifically is funny because one of the things China did was end slavery in Tibet [2]. A large percentage of the population were "serfs" but that was a generous translation because these "serfs" could be traded. You know, like property. Like slaves.

And Vietnam? They had a small border dispute. What did the US do to Vietnam? And Cambodia? And Laos?

But the funniest claim of all here is election interference. The foreign interference in US elections conversation begins and ends with Israel with an honorable mention to Russia for running some Facebook ads. Just last night we had a debate in the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan, a race that AIPAC proxies (eg UDP) have spent upwards of $60 million. On a primary.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_serfdom_controversy

[dgroshev]

Did the US annex Vietnam or Iran?

There's a qualitative difference between interference and outright annexation, with borders redrawn and cultures violently assimilated.

[PunchyHamster]

At this point with how volatile US is I'd rather have China control Taiwan than US.

And this comment isn't about putting any good light on China. Lately US acts like they want to compensate for Russia fucking up less things around the world

[KronisLV]

> Whatever they do in their country is their own problem.

Idk to me it feels like human compassion and ethics dictates that you at least have to care a bit even about the things in other countries. Otherwise all sorts of horrible domestic policies would be justifiable.

[miroljub]

Star Fleet first directive has been proven right many times.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I wish I could be this blissfully naive.

China is becoming an intellectual powerhouse in addition to a manufacturing powerhouse and runs huge spyware and propaganda campaigns.

Read up about T95, MBOX, TVBOX, or other Android TV Boxes advertised as generic TV streaming devices advertised as "unlocked" or capable of accessing free content. They're loaded with spyware/malware, typically BADBOX. Some of them will record audio and record your network traffic and send it to China.

I'm also convinced that the anti-education thread winding its way through US culture is being amplified by China. They likely didn't start it, as it's been growing for decades, but China will happily keep it going.

[theplumber]

That's a very selfish way to think of it. Whatever they do in their country does not stay in their country because China is becoming a superpower so you should expect it (as it's normal) to interfere and affect policy abroad.

For example Lithuania has been punished for letting Taiwan opening an embassy (in Lithuania). So China cares what other countries do in their country. Without EU support Lithuania could have faced very harsh consequences. That's just an example. Another example is the "secret police" stations undeclared overseas police stations operated by China in various countries (i.e. U.S for example). China gave you cheap material goods because that was its business but you have to keep in mind it's an authoritarian, communist regime. It carries an extra risk on top of the potential economic coercion if you give it too power. At least you know that U.S is only after the money and does not want to turn your country in a communist "utopia".

That being said this does not mean we should ban Chinese AI models because China didn't cross any red lines(yet) compared with Russia for example.

[dooom]

"U.S is only after the money and does not want to turn your country in a communist "utopia""

Not mutually exclusive, just take a look at Venezuela.

[theplumber]

That looks like to support my point. The US is just for the money. It’s not like they brought them communism or whatever Venezuela has there. They simply said they don’t care about “spreading” democracy anymore as long as the regime plays ball. I think they did that anyway in the past but at least it was not the “official” policy.

[PatronBernard]

For you personally no, but there's plenty of scandals of politicians being influenced by the Chinese, case in point in my own country: https://www.ft.com/content/601df41f-8393-46ad-9f74-fe64f8ea1...

Don't be naive or I might even think you're working for the Chinese :-)

[blackhaz]

But they're happily selling drone parts to Russians dropping bombs on civilians (or "whatever").

[jari_mustonen]

In fact, they are also selling drones to Ukraine.

[xquce]

Yes and the USA trained and gave weapons to the Taliban and many other terror organizations. "China sold none weapons to another country" really pales in comparison.

[preisschild]

This is wrong. The US did not give weapons to the Taliban (voluntarily). If you mean Operation Cyclone their receiver was not the Taliban but the mujahadeen, which, yes, consisted of Taliban, but also of enemies of the taliban (northern alliance)

[jeltz]

The Northern Alliance contain some people who are probably even worse than the Taliban so while you are technically right I am not sure it matters.

[sailfast]

What country do you live in? Nevermind it doesn’t matter because literally every country has had their politics interfered with.

[b3lvedere]

Oh i bet they have not directly interfered with your politics, but they do interfer a lots in various things. More than any other country on this planet? I don't know. China is big. Really really big.

[john-h-k]

I personally think it’s bad when countries commit genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...

[Paradigma11]

Lol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy

[t0bia_s]

Do you remember covid and where it come from?

[worldthruword]

Tulsi said US operates lot of biolabs outside US so as to avoid US regulations.

[spaceman_2020]

A disease can come from anywhere

Unless you're trying to imply that China engineered the whole thing - extraordinary claim that will require extraordinary evidence

[dudefeliciano]

They did downplay the effects of covid and spread misinformation about it as well as silence the researches and journalists who were first trying to ring the alarm bells

[oneshtein]

My country did the same thing to me. :-/

[watwut]

Are you talking about Trump and conservatives here?

[dudefeliciano]

Nope[1]. I am getting tired of people looking up to China just because the governments of Europe and US are completely fucked. China is no better.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_Chi...

[t0bia_s]

Imagine you have most expensive disease in human history by economy standpoint and after 6 years we have just claims of where it came from. Isn't that suspicious enough?

[flir]

Where did Spanish Flu "come from"? Or HIV for that matter.

We've got a fair idea where SARS-CoV-2 originated (horseshoe bats). It's the early path it took that's muddy.

[t0bia_s]

There was no worldwide lockdowns because of HIV or Spanish Flu.

[sirsinsalot]

Turn off Fox news

[t0bia_s]

/US centrist

Never turned on and probably never will.

[oneshtein]

Yes, I remember: "Vector" BSL4 Lab, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation, Sep 16 2019. Fire blast, then unequipped military first responders which stole lab equipment, then joint military training with Wuhan military police few weeks later.

China was the first victim of the Russian virus.

[altmanaltman]

I mean them selling the cheap material goods is politics, and they use that a lot to threaten other countries. They constantly bully neighbors and assert claims on foreign terriroty. They might not be the comic book villians people are making them out to be but your take is just ignorant

[spaceman_2020]

Such horrible villains, threatening the world with cheap stuff!

[altmanaltman]

Nice straw man. The point is not "cheap stuff" but using economic leverage and territorial pressure on others because of the "cheap stuff." And yes, all China does is produce cheap stuff for the world, nothing else at all lol.

[cechmaster]

They have their own genocide in western china

[Cookingboy]

According to the U.S. State Department, they literally do not:

https://law.stanford.edu/press/state-department-lawyers-conc...

That whole thing was a very successful propaganda campaign, making people believing China has been mass murdering Uyghurs.

[oceansweep]

The article says otherwise. It opens with it isn’t genocide but is crimes against humanity.

The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials.

[preisschild]

> They’ve never interfered in my politics or started any wars

They actively back russia and deliver them weapons and support them with their attempted Genocide in Ukraine. They also actively threaten Taiwan.

Not to mention them claiming almost the entire South China Sea even though this being against international law and threatening smaller nations into submitting to them

[ozgung]

We don’t have to guess. Here is a recent survey:

People in Many Countries Now View China More Positively Than the U.S.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/people-in-many...

[pipes]

Are you saying the USA is somehow as repressive as china?

[LtWorf]

Probably more.

[jimmydoe]

Yes, only if measured by their own people.

Trump deports, half of the USA people screamed; Xin builds reeducation camps, most Chinese people are cool.

[sdevonoes]

As someone who has never visited China or the US; yes. Why? Media. School shootings, ICE, crazy president… What do I see from China? Impressive multi-million cities… and true to be told, not much.

China had a worse reputation, but not anymore since Trump leads the US.

Im not saying that the above is objective, tho

[pipes]

School shootings aren't carried out by the government. Crazy president democratically elected and criticised by a free press. Things that you don't like about a country are a lot different than things that will get you and your family disappeared by your government.

[LtWorf]

They are carried out because of your unwillingness to stop giving weapons to moody teenagers.

[aa-jv]

More repressive, by real statistics.

[dominotw]

> Also everything hes saying about China (and other actors) many outside the USA would say about the USA.

yes he is writing it as usa citizen running it a us company.

I dont see how "usa is also.." is relevant here.

[thaway7388]

His Concern 1 was especially painful to read. It reminds me of Red Fever rhetorics from McCarthy era. He casually mentions CCP and People’s Liberation Army (dogwhistles?) as the most fearful enemy. But he didn’t compare CCP policies to GOP or Trump administration (apple to apple comparison). He doesn’t frame it as Anthropic vs Moonshot competition either. He deliberately frames it as the US vs the Communists war.

He portrays the biggest ever threat of AI as the Chinese Military using the models in their drones. He already sells his models to military customers, US and potentially allies, and they are actively used in the field.

So no objective argumentation here. Just Nationalist political rhetorics and FUD. He’s allowed to do that and he will have an audience. But he won’t be taken seriously outside the US. He appears blindsided.

[aa-jv]

>Also everything hes saying about China (and other actors) many outside the USA would say about the USA.

Yes, I for sure trust the open models from China, more than anything coming out of the USA at the moment.

Its not just the USA's support for genocidal regimes, nor its heinously illegal wars and atrocious 21st century human rights record. Its also the Snowden revelations and the treatment of Julian Assange.

Slowly, surely, the world is building a firewall against the USA's imperialist actions - not just its motives. That AI is a key building block of that machination is of course, highly exciting.

There are many in Europe who feel the same. The tide is very definitely turning.

[Petersipoi]

Why is it relevant what those outside would say about the US? Or what those outside of any country would say about any country. The job of a country is to do what is best for it. It's better for the US to not help China develop AI that surpasses its own capabilities. It's better for China to try anyway. There are many countries inventing nothing with loud opinions. Those opinions are completely irrelevant to China or the US.

[soperj]

> The job of a country is to do what is best for it.

Countries aren't defined like corporations in the US. Why would countries have funds to help places like Haiti otherwise?

Lots of different reasons for countries to do all sorts of things? Why would France have armed the US during their independence movement? Why is the rest of the world supporting Ukraine during this war started by Russia?

[shsjidhs]

You mean to say that without France’s help the “revolutionary war” would just be an embarrassing string of failures and a footnote in Britain’s history?

Oh no, you heretic, The People freed themselves and it was ordained by God, you see. It is through the righteous might of The Greatest Experiment in The History of the World that they showed The World what Freedom really meant.

[altmanaltman]

Having the British lose the US was a good thing for France, simillarly preventing Russia from just taking over another country is for the best of other countries.

While there is no "job" of a country, it is natural that each one will work for its own best interest and any moves it makes in the global world is due to their own vested interests in some way including helping Haiti, France helpong Us and the world supporting Ukraine.

Why would a country act against its interest or just randomly? Alliances and corporation are a part of politics

[soperj]

> Why would a country act against its interest or just randomly?

So why is the US supporting Russia again?

> Having the British lose the US was a good thing for France

This seems a bit reductionist. Why would they give the Statue Liberty to the US if they were only in it for the British loss?

[flaburgan]

The US independency war and the statue of liberty are two centuries apart.

[soperj]

Ah yes, I remember when they towed it into the New York Harbour in the early 70s, Richard Nixon was there to dedicate it.

[oneshtein]

Because Trump blackmailed with Epstein files by Russians.

[psychoslave]

>Why would a country act against its interest or just randomly?

Because country as an entity is a mental construction for which "interest" is a categorical error. It’s certainly a useful concept, but pretending it has interests like some human individual can have have interests. Sure it can serve as rhetorical facility to sell some arguments.

Countries don’t have interests. Some people willing to take control of other people encompassed in that "country" groups have interests, and they don’t necessarily align with best interests of everyone or even majority in each of these groups.

[dgellow]

I mostly agree, but there is some limit to that line of argument: a corporation is also a human, social concept, and we do accept that they act in their own interests (meaning they do have interests, sort of like humans do)

[psychoslave]

Well, you might agree with that, but on my side corporation are pure legal fictions, they don’t have have any intrinsics will and interest. That doesn’t mean they don’t have any existence, just that that there are have a different ontological status from a human person. Just like novel fictional characters, the fact they don’t map to any actual entity doesn’t mean they can’t entice affects they are supposed to convey between narrators and readers.

[testaccount28]

> Why would countries have funds to help places like Haiti otherwise?

because that's what they think is best. what point are you trying to make? that countries don't pursue 'profit' at the expense of all other concerns?

[vincnetas]

I think that that "best" is not always measured in money. And it should not be. Countries are made of people, and people wellbeing should be the main priority of country. And when stepping a bit back, all countries are made of people, so why differentiate? Ideally make life good for all people.

[Davidzheng]

Why should the national security concerns of the US lie with Anthropic?

[cmrdporcupine]

Why does it feel like you think you're talking to only people in the US?

There's plenty of people on this forum that aren't American. Including some former allies whose sovereignty has been aggressively threatened. And some of those people are Anthropic customers.

Even more so, many of us are in countries that would be well within the blast radius of fallout should the US try to "ban" open weight models or make moves to limit "US" models (often developed on research or work by non-Americans too, but that's another topic) only to those blessed by the US gov't.

That's why it matters?

[dgellow]

Not just customers, Anthropic has offices in multiple countries around the world. And hires people from all around the world