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Still not sure how I feel about China of all places to control the only alternative AI stack, but I guess it's better than leaving everything to the US alone. I
by sigmoid10 6mo ago
Still not sure how I feel about China of all places to control the only alternative AI stack, but I guess it's better than leaving everything to the US alone. If China ever feels emboldened enough to go for Taiwan and the US descends into complete chaos, the rest of the world running on AI will be at the mercy of authoritarian regimes. At the very least you can be sure noone is in this for the good of the people anymore. This is about who will dominate the world of tomorrow. And China has officially thrown their hat in the ring.
- Ladioss 6mo agoI always find it an illuminating experience about the power of mass propaganda every time I see an American believe they somewhat have the moral high ground over China, despite starting a new war somewhere around the globe either for petrol or on behalf of Israel every six months.
- rhubarbtree 6mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> they said democratic They didn't even say that. They only said China playing is "better than leaving everything to the US alone."
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- cumshitpiss 6mo ago[dead]
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoFor now indeed, the people that want to get rid of it are currently in power. The US was one of the first democracies in the world, and many countries followed suit. But the US hasn't kept up, and now the powers that be have exploited the weaknesses in the system. With arguably the biggest one being giving the president too much power (appointing supreme court justices, executive orders, etc).
- rhubarbtree 6mo agoI dunno, think it’s doing quite well. Just the people voted for someone who wants to end democracy. Now we see if the system is robust enough to prevent that, but it’s difficult when half the country votes for Trump.
- jack_pp 6mo agoDemocracy in most of the countries is just theater. Trump promised no more wars iirc. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather live in a country without a million cameras that automatically fine me for crossing the street illegally but I don't actually deceive myself in thinking my vote counts for much.
- palata 6mo ago> I'd rather live in a country without a million cameras that automatically fine me for crossing the street illegally Agreed, but there again, the democracies have surveillance capitalism, it's not exactly like we're not being tracked.
- phatfish 6mo agoYou let Trump and all the tech-bro shitheads win with that attitude unfortunately. Democracy is an ongoing battle.
- culi 6mo ago> I'd rather live in a country without a million cameras Are you talking about the US or China? https://deflock.org/ https://deflock.org/ China at least banned the use of facial recognition in public spaces by their supreme court in 2021 (and then further strengthened the ban in 2024 and also got the PIPL). If you're thinking of the "social credit" system please know that that's just an online meme. China's credit score system is not even nationalized and not nearly as invasive as the US's credit score system, which can sometimes determine whether or not someone is allowed to buy a house. Besides their own credit score system, the other thing that sometimes gets labelled the "social credit system" was an attempt they had to track the behavior of business leaders and elected politicians. Basically anyone who holds social power but not the common person. This also never really took off and was not ever nationalized/centralized.
- fastasucan 6mo agoNot very democratic to invade other countries on the whim of a president.
- rhubarbtree 6mo agoActually, it is.
- kiba 6mo agoJust because America is doing bad things doesn't mean China is good, or vice versa.
- Lapel2742 6mo ago> Just because America is doing bad things doesn't mean China is good, or vice versa. Of course not. When it comes to SOTA LLMs you have the choice between two bad options. For many, choosing the Chinese option is just choosing the lesser of two evils (and it's much cheaper).
- eloisant 6mo agoWhy people always dismiss the European option? Mistral is right here, their models are in-between the cheap to run Chinese models and top of the line performances of US frontier models.
- 3s 6mo agoIt’s not top of the line and mostly not open source
- john_minsk 6mo agoFor a lot of people in the world Europe = USA
- benterix 6mo agoBut this makes zero sense. Two different continents, values systems, law systems. Not to mention the current USA administration is openly hostile to Europe. So why would anyone confuse the two.
- quantum_state 6mo agoEurope will not be independent as long as there are US military bases there. Saying otherwise would be kidding oneself.
- willsmith72 6mo ago[flagged]
- birdsongs 6mo ago> That doesn't mean it's positive in human rights Isn't the US building mass detention camps right now for all the brown people there? And arresting / detaining / demanding papers from any and everyone? With federal agents killing civilians? Don't get me wrong, China is also horrible here, they have their own camps. But pretending the US is positive wrt human rights is a wild take in 2026.
- mapcars 6mo ago>Isn't the US building mass detention camps right now for all the brown people there? No? Its for illegal people, regardless of color. Just so happened that most illegals come from specific places
- sam_goody 6mo ago> sn't the US building mass detention camps right now for all the brown people there? Why would you think that? > And arresting / detaining / demanding papers from any and everyone? I have lots of friends from outside the U.S. that come regularly and don't find it onerous. Maybe it depends where you are coming from? > With federal agents killing civilians? OK, I agree that there are issues, and even very serious ones. Obviously, not on the level of China, but still serious issues. Nonetheless, what you see on left leaning media is not representative of what is happening on the ground throughout the U.S. Not even close. IMO, the US is definitely positive wrt human rights. There are issues, but you can go to a No Kings protest, and live your life happily without issues, and it is hard to find another country that is nearly as forgiving. And it at least has people trying to spread concepts of individual liberty, vs most countries in Europe, almost all countries in Asia, and ALL Muslim countries, that are leaning to removing individual rights.
- OCASMv2 6mo agoThe Uyghur say hi.
- melagonster 6mo ago[dead]
- vsgherzi 6mo agoNot about moral high ground. Ones a democracy one isn’t.
- lmz 6mo agoSo that means the people are complicit in whatever wars the US started. Not sure if better or worse.
- nuancebydefault 6mo agoA lot of people voted for someone who was known to be an evil crook. It was very clear that he got into politics for praising his own ego. They voted against 'the good' in the hope for their own benefit and against that of the world. If they did not 'expect' the current state of affairs then they just refused to listen to their own heart.
- drcongo 6mo agoCan you clarify which is which?
- sigmoid10 6mo agoChinese propaganda seems to hit very hard these days. If you really don't know, you seriously need to check what media you are consuming. Yes, the US has huge problems, many old and some new, but on a serious technical level the answer is (at least for now) 100% clear.
- mysecretaccount 6mo ago> Chinese propaganda seems to hit very hard these days. Assuming that everyone who disagrees with you is a propagandized bot is a terrible way to live. You will not learn.
- sigmoid10 6mo agoAssuming that China is not officially a 100% authoritarian dictatorship takes some serious mental gymnastics or hardcore brainwashing by propaganda channels. In fact forget media manipulation. A simple look at what they did to their constitution would already tell you everything you need to know. The US might be moving in this same direction under Trump, but it sure as hell isn't there yet. And if they do try to do the same, there is a good chance for another civil war. So while China is already lost, there is still some level of hope for the US.
- FrojoS 6mo ago[flagged]
- mrkramer 6mo agoAll empires are to some degree evil because their agenda is to dominate weaker peoples and nations. They almost all committed crimes against humanity and genocides if you look retrospectively from the todays point of view. Even our beloved Roman Empire that the Western civilization is built upon was genocidal empire.
- benterix 6mo agoNot sure if we can call it "beloved". For sure respected for what it did to build the base of modern civilization, but we are aware of its dark sides. And probably Nero would be an excellent example of what can happen to the empire and its people when a crazy person becomes its ruler.
- wiseowise 6mo agoWhat makes you think they’re American?
- nailer 6mo ago> I see an American believe they somewhat have the moral high ground over China The elected government of the US has the moral highground of over the regime that killed the KMT in it's weakened state after the KMT defeated Japan, went on a rampage against the educated classes, mowed down its own people with machineguns and tanks when they demanded a say in their own governments, and kidnaps people advocating for democracy to this day, including Jack Ma. > despite starting a new war... on behalf of Israel every six months. The war started when Hamas, funded by Iran, went on a murder and rape rampage against Israeli civilians.
- Der_Einzige 6mo agoOne province of China has enough hellish nightmarish bullshit going on caused by the CCP that we maintain total moral superiority over them. It’s not even a question to anyone except “fellow travelers”.
- rib3ye 6mo agoThe U.S. is not the country conducting amoral behavior with terrorist regimes for oil, that’s China. We conduct amoral behavior with terrorist regimes for dollars.
- rfrey 6mo agoMany of us (worldwide, I'm not American) watched China massacre thousands of its own children at Tiananmen Square. The US is descending into totalitarianism, but it hasn't reached that level yet. And China may have changed in some ways but there have been no signals it would not repeat that event if it thought circumstances warranted.
- kolinko 6mo agoAlso, many of us have lived in countries actually freed thanks to the west’s (mustly us) intervention, and we felt the support during the Russian occupation pre 1989
- yaakushi 6mo agoMany of us have lived or live in countries that are constantly affected and destabilized by past and even modern interventions from the U.S. (the only blame the rest of the "West" bears here is just watching without ever acknowledging the harm done). Just look at Latin America. edit: Not trying to say "US bad, China good." Just there is perspective to everything.
- 1234letshaveatw 6mo agoUs? wow, tell us your story
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- glenstein 6mo agoAnd some of us have a sore lower back after playing tennis, while some of us have terminal stage four cancer. Who is to say which is worse? I think right now there's a kind of global propaganda competition playing out and the thing that does the most damage is false equivalences that encourage loss of perspective.
- philipallstar 6mo agoChina having killed up to 50m of its own population in the 20th century through socialism, while America led the world in funding NATO, global scientific research, and global aid for decades buys America a lot of good grace.
- catlover76 6mo ago[dead]
- hersko 6mo agoTalks about "mass propaganda." Thinks America is starting wars on behalf of Israel. LMAO
- stickfigure 6mo agoThe difference is that - at least in the last 50 years - the US starts wars with brutal dictatorships. Whereas China is threatening war against a thriving democracy. These are not equivalent.
- chrischen 6mo agoThe US starts wars… they just often happen to be with dictatorships. The US definitely also supported dictatorships (like Taiwan and South Korea).
- chrischen 6mo agoThe US starts wars… they just often happen to be with dictatorships. The US definitely also supported dictatorships (like Taiwan and South Korea). You can argue all day about whether A is slightly more rotten than B, but if they are both rotten then in the grand scheme they will both end up being the same thing if something doesn’t get fixed.
- stickfigure 6mo ago> like Taiwan and South Korea. You had to reach back 50 years to find US support for dictators. > they just often happen to be with dictatorships No, they always happen to be with dictatorships. The motives of US politicians are not relevant to this fact (I personally think Trump is corrupt and incompetent); the US system is democratic enough, and Americans are moralistic enough, that even corrupt and incompetent politicians can't get away with military adventurism except with dictatorships. Thus the end of that Greenland nonsense.
- glenstein 6mo agoRight, and if distance from the present matters, probably the biggest risk to global peace (such as it is) comes from China's increasingly serious preparations for a military attack on Taiwan.
- tw1984 6mo ago> You had to reach back 50 years to find US support for dictators. US allies in the entire middle east are literally all dictators or worse than dictators. For example, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, you just need 6 years education in school to understand that is worse than dictators when religion is also heavily involved at the same time.
- SmirkingRevenge 6mo agoThe moral high ground claims here can be generalized: Liberal democracies have moral high ground over authoritarian dictatorships (at least along that one dimension) The US is backsliding tragically (and stupidly) and may lose that moral high ground, but the rest of the western democracies will still have it
- glenstein 6mo agoAnd by contrast what I find stunning is the inability to engage in meaningful comparative analysis of relative harms. There's a lot of spectacularly insightful attention to detail in so far as it mobilizes what aboutism arguments and then that attention mysteriously falls away when we ask questions like the extent to which these sides allow free press or democratic elections with multiple parties or permit fair trials. You used to not have to explain these things.
- srj 6mo agoOn the contrary, I find reading your own confused spin on morality here an interesting window into the effectiveness of propaganda. You're taking two oppressive authoritarian governments and elevating them above the US.
- scyclow 6mo agoAs an American, I can conclusively say that we absolutely have no moral high ground whatsoever. But bringing the topic back to LLMs, I don't feel great about using an LLM that has a panic attack any time I ask about Tiananmen Square or Taiwanese sovereignty.
- tw1984 6mo ago> I don't feel great about using an LLM that has a panic attack any time I ask about Tiananmen Square or Taiwanese sovereignty. well American censored LLMs that usually willing to take extreme efforts to convince me that there is no genocide in Gaza. the same American LLMs also insist that there are many human genders.
- scyclow 6mo agoI don't know what American LLMs you're using. Just asked Claude, which gives nuanced answers on both, but amounts to "It's contested, but numerous authoritative bodies say yes" and "it depends on your definition of gender".
- tw1984 6mo agowhen it comes to topics like genders, "it depends on your definition" when it comes to topics like democracy and freedom, western definition is all you must depend on you don't see the problem? lol
- annexrichmond 6mo agoSo you think the US should sit back and watch Iran develop nukes? Is that the “moral” thing to do?
- itsdesmond 6mo agoThe JCPOA was working fine. We discarded it for vanity and to create an opportunity for more war. That is obviously immoral.
- annexrichmond 6mo agoIf it was working “fine” then why was Iran able to reach 60% enriched uranium and enough for 10 nuclear weapons if they were able to enrich further?
- itsdesmond 6mo agoThat enrichment occurred after Trump voluntarily exited the JCPOA. The IAEA reported no enrichment over the 3.67% threshold through 2018, then reported over 400kg at 60% in 2025, all created in the period after Trump pulled out. You are describing a consequence of ending the JCPOA.
- foobiekr 6mo agoThere’s no organ harvesting of a religious subgroup in America.
- Scroll_Swe 6mo agoI always find the China glazing online getting worse and worse. TikTok and Hasan has really turned the West against itself.
- Rover222 6mo agoChinese citizens will go to jail if they are too critical of their own government. How hard is it for you to wrap your head around those implications?
- amunozo 6mo agoCompetition with the Soviet Union gave all the workers in the world better conditions, also advances in science and technology... (And risk of mutual destruction ;)), even if the USSR wasn't good.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo agoMoral stances aside, I'd argue it's healthy that the US gets competition from abroad. I appreciate the boost that the world is getting from China - infrastructure and construction projects are a huge benefit to economies. Their focus on green energy has caused a huge influx of affordable solar panels, home batteries, EVs, etcetera, helping reduce the dependency on fossil fuels - while the US and especially the other big money spenders in the middle east would rather the world remain fully dependent on them. But for the past years Europe and now Asia are feeling the pain from being overly reliant on that. China's policies and government aren't morally defensible and I do fear that they will become more aggressive in spreading their influence and policies onto other countries, but from an economic standpoint what they're doing is super effective. While the previous world power (the US) is stuck in infighting and going through cycles of fixing/undoing the previous administration's damages, instead of planning ahead.
- Danox 6mo agoIsn’t Mistral close in the ballpark?
- Lapel2742 6mo agoAFAIK: Current Mistral models are not competitive with SOTA-models that come out of the USA or China. They are "good enough" for enterprise usage when you don't need SOTA performance. Their main selling point is: They are neither US-American nor Chinese. That's a real moat in today's world. I think at the moment they feel quite comfortable.
- eunos 6mo agoThey arent. Benchmark wise they are quite apart.
- techsystems 6mo agoThere are no European models that come close. It's Korean models, then a UAE model K2, then Mistral.
- 2ndorderthought 6mo agoMistral has a different focus. They aren't taking on trillions in debt risking their entire economy to produce useful products. I think they are leaders in the democratization of LLMs. Almost everyone has a computer right now that can run a useful variant of a Mistral model. I hope they keep their focus because what they are aiming for likely has the biggest impact on the average person and would be the best case scenario for the technology in general.
- SgtBastard 6mo agoMistral (a French company) shouldn’t be discounted.
- chmod775 6mo ago> Still not sure how I feel about China of all places to control the only alternative AI stack, but I guess it's better than leaving everything to the US alone. Fully agree. From a US perspective, that sucks. For everyone else it's pretty great. At this point the world's opinions of China are better than those of the US in some polls. One country invests and helps build infrastructure on a massive scale globally, the other alienates allies, causes countless conflicts, and openly threatens to end civilizations. Indeed, even if one isn't partial to China, there's reasons to be glad that an increasingly hostile US has powerful competition. > This is about who will dominate the world of tomorrow. For this you'd need a technological moat. So far the forerunners have burned a lot of money with no moat in sight. Right now Europe is happy just contributing on research and doing the bare-minimum to maintain the know-how. Building a frontier model would be lobbing money into the incinerator for something that will be outdated tomorrow. European investors are too careful for that - and in this case seem to be right.
- benterix 6mo agoYeah it's confusing. I mean China has work camps for Uighurs and is very brutal on Tibetans etc. OTOH, their leader is not setting the world on fire every second week and compared to Trump seems like the paragon of reason on the surface. Of course we know it's a facade but man what crazy times to live in.
- wallst07 6mo agoIf Trump acted more like Xi with regards to public speaking, but the actions were still the same, thing would be a lot different. My point is that Trump could sign/execute/order all the same exact things he's done, but if I just never spoke about it, or kept hidden like Chinese do, he would be compared MUCH differently.
- AntiUSAbah 6mo agoIf someone like Trump could talk smarter, he would be smarter and would do things smarter. That would also make him a lot more dangerous. After all in his first presidency he was still the man behind the biggest military on the planet but he knew shit on how to leverage this. In his second term he is even more loose but loose is tempertantrums and simple short sighted strategies. Easy to read, hard to accept.
- mft_ 6mo agoYou’re right… but that’s on the rest of the world not getting their shit together. It’s this sort of example (and not properly supporting Ukraine, and not agreeing how to collectively deal with migrants, and not agreeing how to coordinate defence, and myriad other examples) that highlights what a pointless mess the EU is. It’s not a unified block - it’s 27 self-interested entities squabbling and playing petty power games, while totally failing to plan for the future with vision. The EU could/should have ensured that a European equivalent to OpenAI or Anthropic could thrive, and had competitive frontier models already; instead, they’re years and countless billions behind.
- simgt 6mo agoThe EU pouring even more billions in this would just have meant pouring billions on US tech. China is winning on all fronts at this game because of the embargo, they end up even more vertically integrated as a result of it.
- benterix 6mo ago> The EU pouring even more billions in this would just have meant pouring billions on US tech. Which is crazy given that ASML is European.
- simgt 6mo agoSo is Zeiss, and probably a lot of others in TSMC's supply chain. It still looks like the bulk of the money is made by companies higher in the stack like NVidia and AWS.
- 8note 6mo agoASML is basically american though. american tech operationalized in europe
- simgt 6mo agoHow so? No American shareholder with a majority afaik and everything else about it is very European
- chvid 6mo agoThe important thing is that LLMs are well-dispersed and the technology is relative open, much more open than it could have been. Alternative worthwhile LLMs will emerge from Europe and other non-US western countries once the economic incentives are there.
- cde-v 6mo agoChina doesn't even care about Taiwan anymore, their saber-rattling about it is a convenient distraction while they quietly make it completely irrelevant in the next few years.
- iso1631 6mo agoIt does seem the idea is to get the Taiwanese people to want to choose to rejoin China by making China far better for people to live than Taiwan. Maybe that will be via democracy (i.e. China manipulates the people of Taiwan), or perhaps it will be genuine (i.e. China provides a far better lifestyle for the average person than Taiwan)
- rib3ye 6mo agoI have seen first hand how Chinese nationals behave when visiting Taiwan - it’s not pretty. Shared language and history aside, these two cultures are not in the same solar system when it comes to social norms and curtesies.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- iso1631 6mo agoMore so than say Afghanistan and Sweden?
- 8note 6mo agochina is gonna care about taiwan as a means of ocean access til the end of time, or til the tectonic plates move to make different opportunities. the people and industry arent what matter there
- 2ndorderthought 6mo agoI don't see the issue. China hosts the alternatives or the only game in town for lots of technologies. China has every interest and right to create products. Not everything that comes out of China is some devious plan to do terrible things. It's people trying to make money just like you and me. I am not washing away the authoritarianism, but take a look at other economic super powers directionality. Or that of tech ceos as well. At least Chinese tech companies aren't going around praising wwii Germany, writing manifestos, and bombing children at school or fisherman on whims. It is difficult not to see more countries regardless of leadership putting their hat in the ring as a net positive. Especially if it increases sustainability and lowers the price, which this very clearly does. It's even open source...
- AntiUSAbah 6mo agoCome on... I was hoping that Mistral would do something and man that would be great as european but I hear NOTHING from them ever. I don't know what the problem is. Are we europeans to stupid? Do we just not have enough money / VC money? Are we not proud enough? :(
- parthdesai 6mo ago> If China ever feels emboldened enough to go for Taiwan and the US descends into complete chaos, the rest of the world running on AI will be at the mercy of authoritarian regimes. Alternative being the current reality and world being dominated by US. Let's ask people in Middle East/Asia/South America about how they feel about that. In this current day and age, how is this statement even relevant?
- victorbjorklund 6mo agoNot worse than having our stuff built there. Is it great to be relying on them? No, but at least more stable than US under Trump.
- zobzu 6mo agobold to think half the comments here arent from deepseek itself :) I personally love the bit "us initiated tech war" lol. thats right, they started making AI its their fault! bad imperialist US ! yeah, v5 will do better
- LeFantome 6mo agoThankfully, DeepSeek is the most open of the model providers. And in the hardware side, RISC-V is gaining a lot of traction in China. So the dependency on a single supplier is lower with the Chinese tech stack than with most western options.
- thedelanyo 6mo ago> mercy of authoritarian regimes. Yet, it's the democratic regime which is causing all the chaos around the world and disrespecting the leadership of other jurisdictions, just to keep pushing the petrol dollar going up. Do we ever think there's any subtle difference between authoritarian and democratic? Where democracy ultimately makes the world a better place?