Who's afraid of Chinese models? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#771

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #697

w4lker wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://thereallo.dev/blog/claude-code-prompt-steganography Why should I trust a US company more than a Chinese one?

You shouldn't trust either but also this is whataboutism.

No, it is not. Whataboutism is a specific term created (by Cold War propagandists) to refer to when the US criticizes the USSR about "X," and the Soviet Union replies by asking about "Y" in the US.

It is not a term created to refer to when some American criticizes any of America's official enemies for "X," and someone else reminds you that America also does exactly "X."

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#772

Post by bigyabai » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

astrobiased wrote: post #498

The post hits it spot on with unequal access to the models in terms of security. I'm developing OSS where security is important for the user ... but the frontier models like GPT 5.6 and Fable flake out and state that I cannot get the info/access. This is extremely lopsided I'll have to resort to GLM 5.2/K3 to ensure that those security issues (hopefully) are resolved properly. For OSS, this is one of the most counter…

Part of me wonders if the US Government is muzzling Anthropic and OpenAI so they can stockpile NOBUS exploits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOBUS

There would be a decently large incentive to restrict these models if they could be used to patch (or discover) dangerous payloads. In larger projects like Windows or Chrome, there might still be dozens of unpatched exploits that are too subtle to catch with smaller models.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#773

Post by tcmart14 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #765

samiv wrote: post #717

I'm afraid to trust technology coming from companies operating under the jurisdiction of a rogue aggressive nation that is continuously attacking other nations both (so called) ally and foe using economic and military actions.

Are you describing the United States or China with this quote? It's hard to tell.

Outside of a few boarder disputes with India, I don't China has militarily attacked anyone since they got their ass handed to them by Vietnam (Sino-Vietnamese War 1979). So I think that rules out China.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#774

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

platinumrad wrote: post #702

jayd16 wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't trust either but also this is whataboutism.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with "whataboutism" and it is in fact often illuminating.

Especially because the original criticism is usually a stand-in for an overarching moral condemnation. "Whataboutism" was a US defense for the fact that it was an apartheid state while criticizing political and financial liberties in the Soviet Union.

It also worked. The shame built up in the US so quickly that laws started being struck from the books. The US entered WWII with a segregated military, and by the time it marched into Korea, it was rapidly desegregating. The Soviet Union had successfully made its case that the US had no moral high ground, although it had not made its case for its specific set of limitations of financial and political liberties.

"Whataboutism" is just ad hominem for dummies. But if the real argument is about who is the better man, or what is the better system, ad hominem isn't a logical fallacy. It's simply a change of subject.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#775

Post by sperr11 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

I think a simple experiment is enough to understand why one would have some concern with a state-censored AI model : Just try asking them about atrocities committed by their state[1].

[1] : https://imgur.com/gallery/ai-models-on-atrocities-B7DKUXc

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#776

Post by jayd16 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #771

jayd16 wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't trust either but also this is whataboutism.

No, it is not. Whataboutism is a specific term created (by Cold War propagandists) to refer to when the US criticizes the USSR about "X," and the Soviet Union replies by asking about "Y" in the US. It is not a term created to refer to when some American criticizes any of America's official enemies for "X," and someone else reminds you that America also does exactly "X."

> "Whataboutism" or "whataboutery" (as in, "but what about X?") refers to the propaganda strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of offering an explanation or defense against the original accusation.

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

This is a counter accusation and not a defense, ergo, whataboutism.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#777

Post by linkregister » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

nixon_why69 wrote: post #711

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you advocating for not changing administrations?

Is that a good faith question? Please check the site guidelines.

uses rhetoric

counterparty uses rhetoric in response

"Hey! No fair!"

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#778

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #776

pessimizer wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not. Whataboutism is a specific term created (by Cold War propagandists) to refer to when the US criticizes the USSR about "X," and the Soviet Union replies by asking about "Y" in the US. It is not a term created to refer to when some American criticizes any of America's official enemies for "X," and someone else reminds you that America also does exactly "X."

> "Whataboutism" or "whataboutery" (as in, "but what about X?") refers to the propaganda strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of offering an explanation or defense against the original accusation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism This is a counter accusation and not a defense, ergo, whataboutism.

[deleted]

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#779

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #740

nixon_why69 wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a good faith question? Please check the site guidelines.

It is, and certainly relevant (although perhaps inconvenient) considering the recent elections in China. Aren't shifting priorities a side effect of free elections?

This is as goofy a response as answering the question "why did you make the decision to kill him" with "are you against people making decisions?"

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#780

Post by a34729t » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #558

mad_tortoise wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an hilarious answer. For most of the non-Western world, we don't distrust China because they have created benefits for the developing world. Whereas the USA has been outright imperialist for the past 60-70 years, undermining and overthrowing developing democracies, putting in dictators, using international organisations as debt traps, waging and funding wars that put our lives and economies at risk. It i…

Thank god. I'd been hearing we screwed up catastrophically by electing an admin that took a chainsaw to our foreign aid programs, killing millions in the developing world. Such a relief to learn we were never doing that stuff in the first place.

yeah comments like this show that ending USAID was the right move (apart from it's obvious utility to pass along bribes)