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Comment by dcreater

7 days ago

I really hope we stop using the term "Chinese models". It has this air of Negative connotation. It's the equivalent of calling cars Japanese, which people used to do but now is almost entirely meaningless. You just call them Toyota, Honda, Lexus etc.

67 comments

dcreater

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esafak  7 days ago

I don't think "Chinese" is pejorative in this context any more than "American" is. They are one of the two ecosystems. What's wrong with saying "Japanese cars" today?

  • kennywinker  7 days ago

    > What's wrong with saying "Japanese cars" today?

    Only that it’s a fairly meaningless grouping. When japan first entered the car market in north america there might have been some commonality, but now what characteristics do they share that some american cars don’t have? They’re not even imported a lot of the time.

    Given that, it does start to feel tinged with racism if someone insists on grouping things together that don’t really belong together.

    As for Chinese LLMs, the term doesn’t “feel” pejorative to me - but i also don’t see a totally clear set of attributes they share. Not all are open-weight. Some are small and can be run on consumer hardware, some are huge. They even have a variety of answers to what happened june 3rd 1989

    • Brendinooo  7 days ago

      > now what characteristics do they share that some american cars don’t have?

      Typically the answer is "reliability", which is a positive trait, which makes the original callout about negative connotations very odd to me.

      1 reply →

    • kube-system  7 days ago

      > When japan first entered the car market in north america there might have been some commonality, but now what characteristics do they share that some american cars don’t have?

      They're unique in that they even make a regular passenger car. American manufacturers only make SUVs and a couple of sports/luxury cars. They basically gave up because the Camry/Corolla/Accord/Civic ate their lunch.

      The cheapest sedan you can get from an American brand is the Cadillac CT4.

    • cheema33  5 days ago

      > but now what characteristics do they share that some american cars don’t have?

      The difference is quite big in my opinion. When given the option to pick a Japanese vs American vehicle for about the same price/features, most people will pick the Japanese vehicle. American vehicles have improved over the years, but quality and reliability are generally better for Japanese vehicles even today.

    • antonvs  7 days ago

      > but now what characteristics do they share that some american cars don’t have?

      Better overall design?

  • dcreater  7 days ago

    Sadly there is a pejorative context. The constant us, the free world vs China, the evil Soviets rhetoric from every major news establishment and executive creates that negative view

    • fuck_google  7 days ago

      On the other hand the Trump administration has successfully managed to make Chinese seem better than American, so there might not be that much of a pejorative context any more..

      1 reply →

hootz  7 days ago

For me, it has a positive connotation! In my experience, Chinese Model means cheaper, but still quite effective model you can use for millions of tokens without burning your entire wallet in seconds. That's why I get more excited over a Chinese model release over American models.

odiroot  7 days ago

Japanese cars is actually a positive qualifier. I'd say anything Japanese motor-powered.

  • ffsm8  7 days ago

    Maybe he's just from an alternative universe. Chinese model isn't negative either after all.

unethical_ban  7 days ago

No thanks.

The term seems to have the connotation of "competitive at 1/10 the price of Claude", so I don't see the problem.

It's not Harbor Freight Chinese (and heck even they have decent stuff sometimes now too).

You don't think people still talk about Japanese cars as a distinction in quality from US or European ones?

sroerick  7 days ago

I don't know, I tried using one of the Chinese models and it was VERY quick to scan my entire home dir, so maybe your threat surface is a little different than mine

  • fooker  7 days ago

    Models can't scan anything.

    They return instructions for you to do something, and you or a script you permit chooses to execute what the model tells you and return the result to the model.

WarmWash  7 days ago

[flagged]

  • jdw64  7 days ago

    I tend to agree with the comment in my reply thread about whether we really need to add biased modifiers to the essence of a good product. I think every national system in this world is flawed. And in this context, 'China or Chinese' is often used in a negative sense, like 'Made in China'. But KIMI is a good model, and I think the comment that pointed this out to me correctly identified my unconscious bias.

    And even if the Chinese Communist Party provided funding, the result is still transparently released. So even if it is some kind of propaganda, I don't see what the problem is.

    Is the monopolistic greed of American companies 'good', and China's greed 'bad'? I do have that question.

    • SubiculumCode  7 days ago

      The question is not whether it is a good model, it is whether the model can be trusted to not act intentionally maliciously against certain topics or certain users.

      We live in a time of a great geopolitical rivalry and high tensions with an emergent technology with tons of national security implications. To pretend otherwise is silly, and to fail to ask the question, dangerous.

      1 reply →

  • antonvs  7 days ago

    Do you believe there's some meaningful benefit to the American VC funding model in this case? It's not clear to me what you're trying to say or why you think it's an important distinction.

  • dcreater  7 days ago

    I've heard this claim before but I've never seen any evidence.

    • WarmWash  7 days ago

      Assuming you are just naive like so many others about China...

      China is a communist country with elements of capitalistic markets baked in. But the capitalistic elements are mostly a facade. Underneath, the state retains full ownership and control of all business. The CCP runs all aspects of the government (including the courts/judges), and is the single entity that decides what directions the country (and it's businesses) will move in.

      The CCP, who defacto owns everything and has ultimate final say on everything, has one leader that has the ultimate final say on _everything_, Xi Jinping.

      So while the waters of CCP models feel warm and free, understand it's not organically like that.

      7 replies →

  • well_ackshually  7 days ago

    yes, yes, the spectre of communism, BYD is the CCP, Alibaba is the CCP, stealing your children and eating them for Mao, bla bla bla.

    I have a feeling you'd be slightly salty at people saying "Google and Tesla are making CIA models"