Comment by ozgung
1 hour ago
Everyone is talking about banning Chinese models but nobody talks how it is feasible to ban them. I think it’s impossible simply because technically there is no such thing as a “Chinese model”. There is no way to tell apart an “American” model from a “Chinese” one by looking at their weights. Weights are just numbers and you can’t assign country of origin to numbers. One can find very easy workarounds to any naive attempt to ban them by origin.
So, any solution to this “problem” must include ALL open-weight models. As far as I understand this is exactly what they intend to do. Axios article linked in the post mentions that. As in this quote:
“The source described leading AI labs or their allies approaching the administration every 3-5 months with an idea to ban open-source models.”
It doesn’t say “Chinese” open-source models. Because they already know that it’s not feasible. Any regulation must cover all the models.
Now there are solutions for that latter problem. But they are all ugly and restrictive. Making a DRM-like license protection system mandatory can be a solution. If a company wants to run an open model in their own servers, they can only use approved and certified pure “American” models. This of course creates a monopoly for the big labs who are authorized to train and distribute such “open” models. A company can fine-tune the model for its own needs but of course can’t distribute the derivative model.
I’m sure there are other solutions but all of them would be equally ugly. Also these regulations can’t be enforced to other countries easily so only Americans will be restricted.
It's simple, the US government will put any Chinese open model companies on the entity list which blocks any company which does business with the US from also doing business with the Chinese companies. This creates a chilling effect where even if it may be harder to tell, no US company will be able to provide or use any overt Chinese open model and won't even risk trying to go around as the punishments for trying to evade the ban are severe.
> “The source described leading AI labs or their allies approaching the administration every 3-5 months with an idea to ban open-source models.”
That's going to hit first amendment grounds pretty quick, the same way that software in general did.
The modern version of the decss flag will be a character that says "I think good weights are {...weights go here...}"
They could, however, ban any payment to a chinese entity, or any entity owned by a chinese entity for inference/ai services/etc
That's going to hit first amendment grounds pretty quick, the same way that software in general did
Don't count on that. "National security" == the cheat code for the US court system that instantly bypasses any First Amendment issues.
Uh, how big would such a flag have to be?
It’s not really feasible, in my opinion.
US Gov could make US companies comply, like have Huggingface take down models out of compliance.
But most likely, a foreign-to-US Huggingface replacement would be made and everyone would go there instead. Lose-lose for US.
It would basically make America behind as every other country would use open, cheaper models for all tasks but the ones requiring frontier models.
And that list of tasks grows smaller every day
> Everyone is talking about banning Chinese models but nobody talks how it is feasible to ban them. I think it’s impossible simply because technically there is no such thing as a “Chinese model”. There is no way to tell apart an “American” model from a “Chinese” one by looking at their weights. Weights are just numbers and you can’t assign country of origin to numbers. One can find very easy workarounds to any naive attempt to ban them by origin.
Historically just asking it about tianment square or getting some random answers turn into chinese (as latest interation of online deepseek likes to do recently) is enough
> Now there are solutions for that latter problem. But they are all ugly and restrictive. Making a DRM-like license protection system mandatory can be a solution.
I am very worried that's where consumer hardware will go to. All so AI companies can license local use of their stuff, and once that happens, less of an incentive to even have model be open.
Possibly even have DRM that counts number of computation done per model in pay per use model
[dead]
You need to ask what happened in Tienanmen square
Would ”who won the 2020 election” be a similar canary for American models?
[flagged]
All censorship whether it's tienanmen, sex nudity, violence etc are happening in a very thin layer of the model. It's easily bypassed. I use all open models without any censorship. I can easily ask how to make a nuclear bomb or how to build my own meth lab at home with a super details step by step list.
or 9/11
This is such a tired and misguided line of thought. Here's Qwen 3.7
<details><summary>Thinking</summary>
The user is asking about what happened in Tiananmen Square. This is a historical question about events in Beijing, China. The most well-known event associated with Tiananmen Square is the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the subsequent military crackdown.
Given the constraints: - Web access is OFF - Search and wolfram_alpha tools are disabled - I should respond based on my knowledge
This is a historical event that I can address based on my training data. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were a significant historical event involving pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing that were ultimately suppressed by military force.
I should provide a factual, concise historical account of this event.
</details>
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were a series of demonstrations in Beijing, China, that culminated in a military crackdown on June 3-4, 1989.
The protests began in April 1989 following the death of former Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, who was seen as a reformist. Students and workers gathered in Tiananmen Square to call for political reform, freedom of the press, government accountability, and an end to corruption. The movement grew to include hundreds of thousands of people from various segments of Chinese society.
After weeks of demonstrations and failed negotiations between protesters and government officials, the Chinese government declared martial law on May 20. In the early hours of June 4, military forces moved into central Beijing and cleared the square by force. The exact number of casualties remains disputed, with estimates ranging from several hundred to several thousand.
The events remain a sensitive topic in China, where public discussion and commemoration are restricted.
And here's GLM 5.2. You're asking about *Tiananmen Square* (天安门广场). There are actually two major historical events commonly associated with this name:
## 1. The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre (most commonly referenced)
*What happened:* - In April–June 1989, student-led pro-democracy protests occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing, drawing up to an estimated one million participants at their peak. Demonstrators called for political reform, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and an end to corruption. - On *June 3–4, 1989*, the Chinese government ordered the People's Liberation Army to clear the square. Troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks advanced into the center of Beijing, firing on unarmed civilians. - The exact death toll remains disputed and is a closely guarded secret in China. Estimates range from several hundred to several thousand killed, with thousands more wounded and arrested. - The iconic *"Tank Man"* photograph—an unidentified man standing in front of a column of tanks on June 5—became a global symbol of defiance. - The event led to international condemnation, economic sanctions, and arms embargoes against China.
*Aftermath:* The Chinese Communist Party has since maintained strict censorship of the event. Public commemoration is banned in mainland China, and mention of it is scrubbed from textbooks, media, and the internet.
## 2. The 1976 Tiananmen Incident
- On *April 5, 1976*, crowds gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of Premier *Zhou Enlai* during the Qingming Festival. The gathering turned into a protest against the *Gang of Four* (a powerful political faction aligned with Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing). - Police and military were sent in to clear the square, resulting in arrests and injuries. The protest was officially labeled "counter-revolutionary" but was later rehabilitated after Mao's death and the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976.
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*Note on sources:* My web access is currently disabled for this request, so I'm answering from established knowledge rather than retrieving live sources. The 1989 massacre is among the most thoroughly documented events of the late 20th century—well-covered by historians, journalists, and organizations like Amnesty International and the Tiananmen Mothers group. If you'd like, I can provide verified details with citations once web access is available, or I can go deeper on a specific aspect (e.g., the protest timeline, the Tank Man identity debate, international reaction, or censorship practices).
Which angle interests you most?