4 ms·

> Do you want the US to "win" AI? I don't want any one particular country, or organization, to "win" AI. I want AI capabilities to remain diffuse and spread ou

> Do you want the US to "win" AI? I don't want any one particular country, or organization, to "win" AI. I want AI capabilities to remain diffuse and spread out, so that everybody has access to approximately equal levels of AI. If anything, you might say that I want "Open Source to win AI".

oceansky 6mo ago
That's the last thing big tech companies want. Maybe Meta being the odd exception with Llama.
- awestroke 6mo ago
  Meta is not in the AI game any more
  - oceansky 6mo ago
    Just saw Zuckerberg post from July 2025 saying they are going to be "careful" with what they release.
    - trvz 6mo ago
      1) In the AI world, that's a very long time ago 2) That still equates to "Meta is not in the AI game any more" in meta-corporate speak
      - oceansky 6mo ago
        Yes, point two is what I meant.
  - pjc50 6mo ago
    Didn't they just announce they were going to be surveilling all their employees screens and keystrokes for AI training? Is that just for the love of the game rather than as part of a product?
    - oceansky 6mo ago
      That's probably just for internal metrics, automating dev work and facilitate stack ranking. Not to release a product necessarily.
  - tim333 6mo ago
    LLM Arena has them at #3 on the overview, behind Anthropic and Google, ahead of Grok and OpenAI.
- rienbdj 6mo ago
  Meta wants the models to be cheap and available because their strength is the context data and platform control.
- insane_dreamer 6mo ago
  Apple, at least at present.
- mamcx 6mo ago
  The TOTAL opposite! Getting free labour, lipstick of "freedom", and enable to put millions invested in what open source never can do: Scaling, infra, win big contracts, etc. Open Source NEVER win the market game. It only give consolation to few that can run things locally.
jayknight 6mo ago
>I want AI capabilities to remain diffuse and spread out... The most widely used AI systems are controlled by a few billionaires. I'd like to see it become much more spread out.
- mindcrime 6mo ago
  Fair. I could have phrased that better. I agree, things should ideally become even more diffuse than they currently are!
elcritch 6mo ago
Right, in particular my belief long term is that there must be functional open source AI + Robotics that common people can own and operate. Otherwise big corporations and/or governments will own everything and most folks will be serfs. However if you can buy a few robots and go run a homestead then there can be a counterbalance of people not beholden to the system. A telling sign of techno-feudalism will be AI becoming heavily regulated and even illegal for common people to make or own. You know because “public safety”.
keybored 6mo ago
This smells like how markets would work well if everyone had a little capital. But money is too fungible. The more you have the more you can get. But if electricity and hardware is a proxy for AI then those things are much less fungible. And if those two things in turn are not tied to the hip with money. > If anything, you might say that I want "Open Source to win AI". Has OSS won in terms of being software for the people?
safety1st 6mo ago
[flagged]
- pjc50 6mo ago
  This is very true, but: - very little of this has ever extended outside Chinese borders, apart from the extraterritorial policing of Chinese nationals; they've not "gone global" in the way the US did - the current US faction is also trying to work towards an ethnostate, and has turned hard against non-USians and increasingly against non-white US nationals: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/trump-immigration-what-matters/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/trump-immigratio... As a Brit: "it so happens that I was born not [American] and have no ancestry in [America], and the preponderance of evidence over the last few decades shows that the result of this, is that [American billionaires] will pretty much never "share the wealth" with me in any meaningful form." Moreover, American and Russian billionaires have shown substantial interest in making the politics of my home country much worse.
  - safety1st 6mo ago
    - very little of this has ever extended outside Chinese borders, apart from the extraterritorial policing of Chinese nationals; they've not "gone global" in the way the US did I would dispute this. They just use tools that most Westerners are not familiar with. Take a look at how most of Southeast Asia's economies are organized, and at the top, you'll find a whole lot of Han Chinese families. In many cases these families emigrated generations ago, put a fair degree of effort into keeping their bloodline Chinese, still build shrines to their ancestors, and still maintain deep ties to the mainland. Dhanin Chearavanont, who runs the largest monopoly in Thailand, is Chinese-Thai and holds Shenzhen's Foreign Investor license #001. Probably half of the Cambodian economy is Chinese-owned at this point. The list goes on. The Chinese do it through family and blood and assert a lot more control than most Western onlookers realize (but Southeast Asians are well aware). Outside of an invasion every few decades, the US exerts a weaker level of control on a greater number of countries. US military influence crumbles once they leave, whereas Chinese family influence endures for centuries.
- mindcrime 6mo ago
sjs382 6mo ago
AI gets better with more resources. Even if you have access to the software/models, those with more money to throw at better hardware (and the cost associated with running it) will be better positioned. I wish we had a good way to solve for that.

oceansky 6mo ago

That's the last thing big tech companies want. Maybe Meta being the odd exception with Llama.

awestroke 6mo ago
Meta is not in the AI game any more
- oceansky 6mo ago
  Just saw Zuckerberg post from July 2025 saying they are going to be "careful" with what they release.
  - trvz 6mo ago
    1) In the AI world, that's a very long time ago 2) That still equates to "Meta is not in the AI game any more" in meta-corporate speak
    - oceansky 6mo ago
      Yes, point two is what I meant.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  Didn't they just announce they were going to be surveilling all their employees screens and keystrokes for AI training? Is that just for the love of the game rather than as part of a product?
  - oceansky 6mo ago
    That's probably just for internal metrics, automating dev work and facilitate stack ranking. Not to release a product necessarily.
- tim333 6mo ago
  LLM Arena has them at #3 on the overview, behind Anthropic and Google, ahead of Grok and OpenAI.
rienbdj 6mo ago
Meta wants the models to be cheap and available because their strength is the context data and platform control.
insane_dreamer 6mo ago
Apple, at least at present.
mamcx 6mo ago
The TOTAL opposite! Getting free labour, lipstick of "freedom", and enable to put millions invested in what open source never can do: Scaling, infra, win big contracts, etc. Open Source NEVER win the market game. It only give consolation to few that can run things locally.

jayknight 6mo ago

>I want AI capabilities to remain diffuse and spread out... The most widely used AI systems are controlled by a few billionaires. I'd like to see it become much more spread out.

mindcrime 6mo ago
Fair. I could have phrased that better. I agree, things should ideally become even more diffuse than they currently are!

elcritch 6mo ago

Right, in particular my belief long term is that there must be functional open source AI + Robotics that common people can own and operate. Otherwise big corporations and/or governments will own everything and most folks will be serfs. However if you can buy a few robots and go run a homestead then there can be a counterbalance of people not beholden to the system. A telling sign of techno-feudalism will be AI becoming heavily regulated and even illegal for common people to make or own. You know because “public safety”.

keybored 6mo ago

This smells like how markets would work well if everyone had a little capital. But money is too fungible. The more you have the more you can get. But if electricity and hardware is a proxy for AI then those things are much less fungible. And if those two things in turn are not tied to the hip with money. > If anything, you might say that I want "Open Source to win AI". Has OSS won in terms of being software for the people?

safety1st 6mo ago

[flagged]

pjc50 6mo ago
This is very true, but: - very little of this has ever extended outside Chinese borders, apart from the extraterritorial policing of Chinese nationals; they've not "gone global" in the way the US did - the current US faction is also trying to work towards an ethnostate, and has turned hard against non-USians and increasingly against non-white US nationals: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/trump-immigration-what-matters/ https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/trump-immigratio... As a Brit: "it so happens that I was born not [American] and have no ancestry in [America], and the preponderance of evidence over the last few decades shows that the result of this, is that [American billionaires] will pretty much never "share the wealth" with me in any meaningful form." Moreover, American and Russian billionaires have shown substantial interest in making the politics of my home country much worse.
- safety1st 6mo ago
  - very little of this has ever extended outside Chinese borders, apart from the extraterritorial policing of Chinese nationals; they've not "gone global" in the way the US did I would dispute this. They just use tools that most Westerners are not familiar with. Take a look at how most of Southeast Asia's economies are organized, and at the top, you'll find a whole lot of Han Chinese families. In many cases these families emigrated generations ago, put a fair degree of effort into keeping their bloodline Chinese, still build shrines to their ancestors, and still maintain deep ties to the mainland. Dhanin Chearavanont, who runs the largest monopoly in Thailand, is Chinese-Thai and holds Shenzhen's Foreign Investor license #001. Probably half of the Cambodian economy is Chinese-owned at this point. The list goes on. The Chinese do it through family and blood and assert a lot more control than most Western onlookers realize (but Southeast Asians are well aware). Outside of an invasion every few decades, the US exerts a weaker level of control on a greater number of countries. US military influence crumbles once they leave, whereas Chinese family influence endures for centuries.
mindcrime 6mo ago

sjs382 6mo ago

AI gets better with more resources. Even if you have access to the software/models, those with more money to throw at better hardware (and the cost associated with running it) will be better positioned. I wish we had a good way to solve for that.