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U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#721

Post by marcosdumay »

matthest wrote: post #598
razighter777 wrote: post #135

I hope this doesn't become the new norm where government becomes the bottleneck for innovation in the AI space. It's worrying that with no formal and transparent policy framework that the government will be picking winners and losers and stifling innovation. There's been no public policy, executive order, legislation, or otherwise on this, I wonder if anyone has filed FOIA requests for these decisions or the conversa…

The precedent for this is terrible. MAGA is bad enough. Imagine if the current batch of US progressives, who have 0 idea how any of this works, wins the presidency and gets to decide who gets to use it.

From the other side of the world, the current batch of US progressives looks quite liberal. It looks to me they'll either completely restrict AI or not touch it at all.

Do you think they'll try to dictate who gets to use it?

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#722

Post by golem14 »

jameshart wrote: post #471
tptacek wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it too, but worth noting that this is basically unprecedented at least within the last 25 years; I think you have to go back to export controlled cryptography for another example of this kind of abrupt and targeted regulation.

We’ve seen more examples recently. TikTok, wireless routers, polestar cars…

I think that's a bit different. The crypto-wars were about restricting strong encryption IN GENERAL. Not targeting a specific vendor.

The equivalent would be to restrict all LLMs with a minimum number of weights.

That's probably as futile, but remember for how long the encryption ban proved to be a nuisance.

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#723

Post by olalonde »

Sol- wrote: post #348
pixelpoet wrote: post #133

Are these models still relevant for people outside the US? I get the impression we're stuck on GPT 5.5 and Opus 4.8 pretty much permanently now, and relying on Chinese models in future.

If the US really cracks down on frontier model access, you'll see them make Chinese open models illegal. You might say "oh well, let them try", but they will just put direct and secondary sanctions on every company whose systems have used Chinese models in some way. They just have to make an example out of a few international companies and no one will dare to use Chinese frontier models, at least commercially.

You think the US can tell the rest of the world "we're the only ones allowed to use frontier models" and that the rest of the world will just comply? There's just no way. Not even close US allies would go along with that.

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#724

Post by tokai »

utilize1808 wrote: post #568
pixelpoet wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then all they do is drive the usage of open models underground (copyright infringement is illegal too, and still common), stifle US companies operating legally, and accelerate the rest of the world decoupling from the US. I hope they do it! It will have a positive long-term effect just like the Iran war footgun accelerates renewable energy transition.

Have you seen legitimate corporates use cracked software? If you do, then your competitors will report you; your employees will blackmail you. The risk is too great.

Microsoft shipped windows for years with files signed by a warez group because Microsoft developers had used a piece of pirated software. Nothing happened.

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#725

Post by slashdave »

razighter777 wrote: post #135

I hope this doesn't become the new norm where government becomes the bottleneck for innovation in the AI space. It's worrying that with no formal and transparent policy framework that the government will be picking winners and losers and stifling innovation. There's been no public policy, executive order, legislation, or otherwise on this, I wonder if anyone has filed FOIA requests for these decisions or the conversa…

> conversations between the Executive Branch and AI companies

You think there is a record?

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#726

Post by stanac »

noncoml wrote: post #648
stanac wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For personal use I don't care if I get access to it. Tokens are becoming too expensive. I am using Chinese models. What worries me is that my company may never get access. I work for a well known US company, but from Europe, we also have developers in Mexico. I can only guess US gov will take this into account when deciding who gets to use the new models. Even worse than not getting access is getting fired. Since les…

> For personal use I don't care if I get access to it. Tokens are becoming too expensive. How is this a rational argument? Are you so self centered that you only care about government decisions that affect ONLY the present you? “I don’t care that the government made prescription glasses illegal, I can see fine without them”

I have zero control about what foreign (US) government does.

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#727

Post by slashdave »

bastardoperator wrote: post #414
razighter777 wrote: post #135

I hope this doesn't become the new norm where government becomes the bottleneck for innovation in the AI space. It's worrying that with no formal and transparent policy framework that the government will be picking winners and losers and stifling innovation. There's been no public policy, executive order, legislation, or otherwise on this, I wonder if anyone has filed FOIA requests for these decisions or the conversa…

I remember when Republicans told us they want less regulation and smaller federal government. Now they want their dementia riddled god king to control everything from pool liners to the information you're allowed to see, which is all in books and readily available online.

You're assuming that their base is rational

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#728

Post by wrsh07 »

Whether or not you assume bad intent of the government here, the amount of money the export control on Fable has cost Anthropic has to be unbelievably high

Eg I expect I would have paid more than 2x per day what I spent the past few weeks, and if gpt 5.6 comes out and is competitive that's going to absolutely gain market share.

An unbelievably costly turn of events for them

Re: U.S. government will decide who gets to use GPT-5.6

#730

Post by rdbl27 »

rgbrenner wrote: post #283

Im not worried about this at all. The OpenAI, Anthropic and the US government can play this game all they want... They're just accelerating the development of open source models; and helping destroy the lead the US has built in AI, and their profit margins along with it. This is like the battle between PostgreSQL and Oracle all over. Move up market, isolate yourself to enterprises, and watch while everyone else build…

I generally agree, but it's a bit overstated to say "nobody talks about Oracle now" -- they made a profit of about $17 billion dollars in 2025.
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