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Comment by maxglute

8 hours ago

Which of my words implied any of this?

One person's hobby started the industry in PRC and set the trend and inspired talent in nascent field with no established business model. PRC competitors didn't want to FOMO and just knew they had to compete with opensource and everyone fast followed. They bought what limited compute they could, hired what talent they could and just told them get to work. There's a reason even Chinese Uber / DiDi was releasing open source models. There wasn't some grand coordinated posture to compromise US markets, it's incidental to PRC industry being PRC industry. Very few in PRC thought they could close gap this fast with compute deficit. US chose to continuously dump venture $$$ and company warchests quarter after quarter on their own to increase exposure. There's no grand conspiracy to turn US into communist state (wut), there is not "bet", just typical PRC domestic involution business shenanigans clashing with US financialized VC shenanigans. In alternate world if PRC models not competitive, open source wouldn't even matter to US valuations. In alternate world if PRC models competitive and US AI isn't leveraged to shit to multiple % of gpd, i.e. systemic contagion risk, it also wouldn't matter.

It doesn't matter if US/west makes $ off PRC models, PRC doesn't have enough indigenous compute let alone spare to meaningfully compete globally. In so much it matters economically (again happy happenstance for PRC) is denying US AI making $$$$$ while spending $$$$ vs US AI making $ while spending $$$$. Extra happy happenstance that $$$$ US spending on is basically all the VC money and FAANG warchest stockpiled by US tech over decades... i.e. US spent so much that it meaningfully constrains private money to spend more in future. Meanwhile PRC AI spending $ to make $ (or less), but still have $$$ in reserve for other shit. It also doesn't help that half of business model depends on building infra on tight schedule that US is... not great at.