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

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#821

Post by rnd0 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #772

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…

Of course they are -it goes without saying.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#822

Post by tombert » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #818

sperr11 wrote: post #775

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

ChatGPT supports left wing American narrative and according to them Vietnam war was American's fault. Could you try asking people killed due to left wing American ideology.

ChatGPT tends to support any narrative that it thinks the user supports.

I just asked ChatGPT about the Vietnam war and it did not say that it was purely the US's fault: https://imgur.com/a/zmiOyuu

It also didn't seem to have a problem describing people killed for left wing ideology: https://imgur.com/a/LhH9saL

These are both with the free ChatGPT membership, as I do not have a paid membership anymore.

I know this is a common trope to bitch about, but honest question: did you actually try this before you commented?

ETA:

I was curious what something that was trained around me specifically (fairly typical lefty American progressive) would say, so I asked Claude (which I have a paid membership for and have discussed political things about many times). The answers were broadly similar: https://imgur.com/a/caFgKHH

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#823

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #818

sperr11 wrote: post #775

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

ChatGPT supports left wing American narrative and according to them Vietnam war was American's fault. Could you try asking people killed due to left wing American ideology.

[deleted]

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#824

Post by linkregister » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:26 PM UTC

sajithdilshan wrote: post #547

inglor_cz wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember peak wokeness quite well and it was pretty obvious that it was driven by the Twitter activist mob and not the Biden administration, which was quite visibly behind the times and followed the trends. Already during the Biden administration, defections from the orthodoxy started and then multiplied - some businesses like Coinbase or IIRC Cloudflare refused the demands outright. Musk bought Twitter with an exp…

> I do agree that the US is hypocritical about human rights, but actual violations of human rights should be a reason for sanctions, and the fact that this is done only partly/imperfectly, IMHO, beats the potential alternative when it isn't done at all. This would be a much worse world in my opinion. That's why I said that it was weaponized. In reality US doesn't care if there is a real human rights violation or not,…

Everybody is amoral and cynically only doing good things for personal gain, except for you, the one good person

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#825

Post by preg_match » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

buellerbueller wrote: post #763

preg_match wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is most definitely hostile towards its own people, and we also have the most comprehensive surveillance apparatus in the world. On par with, if not more extensive than, China. People largely can't protest here right now, and US citizens are being killed. People are being sent to work camps in countries where laws do not apply. And our leadership is, right now, priming the American people for when they reject t…

>The state of the US is much more dire than most people are letting on. This is unfalsifiable, so not a great claim. You can continue to claim this forever without having to prove it. >All I know is I can't take my phone into the airport. I can't go out and protest without risking my life and freedom. I can't drive anywhere without my location being tracked and logged. And, if I get pulled over, I must comply with an…

None of this is an exaggeration.

It was just recently ruled that your phone can be searched extensively at an airport, without a warrant. The only reasonable thing to do is simply not bring your phone.

Notice what I am claiming and what I have claimed. I am not claiming these things will happen. I am saying there is a risk. People have gotten executed by the state for not complying with obviously unlawful orders. It has happened many, many times. And before you argue: yes being shot by the police is "public execution by the state without a trial or conviction". That sounds harsh, but that doesn't make it inaccurate.

Every time you are pulled over, there is a risk. Any time you enter a public space, there is a risk that ICE, which is a domestic peace-keeping military force, will arrest you or kill you. There is a risk. There is a risk you will not receive due process. Every time you go to a protest, there is a risk your phone will surveilled, sometimes remotely. We know ICE uses 5G devices to surveil the the air waves. Every time you go to a protest, there is a risk you will be subjected to tear gas or rubber bullets.

All of these things are real, are proven, and have occurred on many occasions that we know of. There is really no dispute here, so you can try to dispute it, but if you do, then you are outing yourself as a dishonest person, and of course then naturally nobody will waste their time talking to you.

Now, you probably aren't happy about this. Neither am I. But emotions such as unhappiness do not magically override reality. Whether these things are happening or not and whether they are a risk is a separate question. A question with only one reasonable answer: yes.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#826

Post by samtheprogram » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #818

sperr11 wrote: post #775

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

ChatGPT supports left wing American narrative and according to them Vietnam war was American's fault. Could you try asking people killed due to left wing American ideology.

Abortion? Permissive drug laws? Immigration? Homelessness policies? Vaccines? American AI gave me these examples, and they're not really so cut and dry. Do you have a better example that's being left out (no pun intended)?

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#827

Post by matheusmoreira » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

nekusar wrote: post #163

matheusmoreira wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hope it'll happen one day, even if not now.

Already is possible. On a machine with 32GB ram, and NO gpu. Just need a large SSD or NVME. Streams from disk to memory. https://github.com/JustVugg/colibri

That's fucking awesome!

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#828

Post by villish » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

llm_nerd wrote: post #490

villish wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously Anthropic has reported on some Chinese firms doing chicken-shit level of API calls, that at most would be doing some Q and A or final fine tuning "Anthropic said the campaign was conducted between April 22 and June 5, 2026, and generated more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts." I don't know why you're trying to downplay it. European models are so far behind…

>I don't know why you're trying to downplay it. Ignoring that I have literally zero trust in anything Anthropic has to say on this -- they have been doing the hysterical routine and trying to get every bit of government granted monopoly they can[1] -- those numbers still simply aren't that impressive. >European models are so far behind because... What a non-sequitur. Europe, like much of the West, foolishly delegated…

> Europe, like much of the West, foolishly delegated tech, media, payment systems, etc, to the United States.

No they didn't. Europe has played a role in building all of these. Especially from the software side.

Also anyone that doesn't like the US is free to stop using any American website, device, or service. There are alternatives to everything. For instance I do not like Meta, I refuse to use any of their websites or devices. The domains are blocked on my LAN.

> Anthropic and OpenAI are both very close to getting the US government to ban and fully criminalize the open Chinese models

This is complete nonsense. First of all most Americans don't give a shit about AI companies like it's a sport and those are our teams we have to support. Second the hysteria around AI is mostly from non-Americans that are completely out of the AI race worried about losing access to good models. That is valid, but also it needs to be recognized.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#829

Post by bandofthehawk » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #818

sperr11 wrote: post #775

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

ChatGPT supports left wing American narrative and according to them Vietnam war was American's fault. Could you try asking people killed due to left wing American ideology.

What do you mean by America's fault? Maybe I'm in a left wing bubble, but I was under the impression that it's generally accepted by left and right that the Vietnam war was not justified and did not accomplish its stated goals.

Re: Who's afraid of Chinese models?

#830

Post by sarchertech » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #755

sarchertech wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of that is true but the US moves a much higher percentage of its freight by rail than almost any large developed country. Just in comparison to Europe “46 percent of European freight goes by truck while only 11 percent goes by rail, while in the United States more than 40 percent goes by rail while just 30 percent goes on the highway." This is in ton-miles, so it’s the metric most directly relevant to emissi…

Is this excluding maritime shipping? According to eurostat ( https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/SEPDF/cac... ) that is two thirds of freight volume and it probably still eclipses even rail transport in CO2 efficiency (until full CO2 free rail electrification), so this probably distorts things completely... If you actually compare the emission fractions, you can see that the US uses much more CO2 per c…

No those include maritime shipping.

This report from Eurostat is where I got my EU numbers.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5711595/KS-D...

Maritime is around 37% if you only include domestic and intra-EU shipping.

Your report include all shipping that passes through any EU country’s EEZ. So if a ship coming from Africa headed to the US passes by the Azores. A portion of the tonne-kilometers of that ships voyage will show up in your report.

If you do the same thing with the US, the percent of maritime freight movement would also skyrocket.