171–180 of 335 posts
The bill is political theater and this article is playing into it. A downloaded model that can be run on US servers is covered by the first amendment as free speech. This is not the same circumstance as the law that required TikTok divest of its platform, which was over spying concerns[0]. You can’t spy on Americans when data is kept on US servers. 0. Per the TikTok Supreme Court ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The rationale is to damage Chinese commercial interests. Otherwise, the billions of IOT devices that dial back to Chinese manufacturers would be way higher up the list than an AI tool that has shown five minutes of adoption.
We’ve gone beyond being able to damage their interests with protectionism. We’re only hurting ourselves by denying access to any Chinese innovation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concerns are about adversarial foreign governments being able to silently target messages to highly-influenced demographics en masse. I swear I have heard zero people opposed to the ban who seem to even be vaguely aware of that aspect which is the entire actual issue , and instead are completely confused and think it’s about spyware or hacking. Whether or not you agree with the ban, we need to actually be discuss…
That is speech. I'm sorry but I have yet to see a single person who makes this point admit that it's a form of speech suppression. This is classic First Amendment precedent. Just because the speaker is someone you don't like, or its content is anti-American (or what have you), doesn't mean it's not protected speech.
What is being prohibited is an adversarial government having complete control over an entity that can decide which speech is delivered to which specific audience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concerns are about adversarial foreign governments being able to silently target messages to highly-influenced demographics en masse. I swear I have heard zero people opposed to the ban who seem to even be vaguely aware of that aspect which is the entire actual issue , and instead are completely confused and think it’s about spyware or hacking. Whether or not you agree with the ban, we need to actually be discuss…
The concerns are that US hegemony over the media narrative is crumbling. Young people, "highly-influenced" as you call them, sees that American bombs are dropped on refugees in Gaza and they don't think that is right. So just do what China itself does and remove everything that challenges the government-approved narrative. Banning TikTok is no different from banning publishers of books the government doesn't like.
> The Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley has introduced a new bill that would make it illegal to import or export artificial intelligence products to and from China, meaning someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass. You get less jail time for committing 34 fel…
That said, there has always been a serious imbalance with China that has yet to be addressed as far as I know. This isn't a US-vs-China thing. This applies to every country in the world. In most nations around the world China is able to buy land, property, businesses, etc. The reciprocal isn't true. We could say a similar thing about intellectual property. Good luck enforcing yours in China. Entire industries in China have been built on the back of, to be kind, borrowed IP.
One could have made the argument to look the other way 40 or 50 years ago, when China was an agrarian society in need of economic help. That is no longer the case, by far. Why is it that residents or companies from western countries cannot fully own property in China in the same way as the Chinese can do everywhere else in the world?
This concept of lack of reciprocity extends into such things as data and privacy rights and ownership. Everyone knows that any service based around user data (TikTok, AI, whatever) based in China creates 100% exposure of that data to government entities, without any level of transparency or accountability --particularly if you are not Chinese and likely worse if you are.
I think it is good and likely necessary to call China to task on these issues and apply (or continue to apply) pressure for them to open the doors to reasonable levels of reciprocity. The relationship, otherwise, is decidedly one-sided, and this means that nobody will ever trust them. Why would anyone send AI queries and data to servers in China? Or use any current or future code generator offerings to work on projects? That would be, at a minimum, suicidal.
So, while this bill is bonkers, maybe it launches a conversation that might, in a few years, drive reform that could open China and Chinese services like TikTok and AI to the world without fear of use, abuse and repercussions stemming from the nature of their society and government. To be sure, I think China would benefit immensely from a greater degree of openness.
> “Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States,” Senator Hawley said in a statement. “America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation.” Oh goodness me!.…
There's a point to be made that the Chinese don't play by the same set of rules; I don't know why Hawley doesn't just make that point. Oh, wait, I do know: he's an idiot.
Or the USA taking the UK's research on nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project and cutting off access to it by British scientists.
I'm not even British and those are just two examples from the top of my head. The hypocrisy is absolutely infuriating...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concerns are about adversarial foreign governments being able to silently target messages to highly-influenced demographics en masse. I swear I have heard zero people opposed to the ban who seem to even be vaguely aware of that aspect which is the entire actual issue , and instead are completely confused and think it’s about spyware or hacking. Whether or not you agree with the ban, we need to actually be discuss…
The concerns are that US hegemony over the media narrative is crumbling. Young people, "highly-influenced" as you call them, sees that American bombs are dropped on refugees in Gaza and they don't think that is right. So just do what China itself does and remove everything that challenges the government-approved narrative. Banning TikTok is no different from banning publishers of books the government doesn't like.
Banning TikTok has literally nothing to do with silencing pro-Palestinian content. For fuck’s sake, Trump is trying his best to bring it back while threatening to deport students who engage in pro-Palestinian activism.