Comment on ‘Sputnik moment’: $1tn wiped off US stocks after Chinese firm unveils AI chatbot

• DdCno1@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Saying that “everyone is doing it” is called hypernormalization and a common propaganda technique used by autocratic regimes like Russia and China. It’s meant to instill feelings of hopelessness and indifference. It is also usually extremely dishonest, since it relies on false equivalencies (like in this case) and/or comparing current state crimes with past state crimes of others.

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  • RusAD@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    DeepSeek is designed to follow Chinese state propaganda. ChatGPT is designed to follow American oligarchy propaganda. Each side pushes their own biases. Where is the false equivalence?

    Also I wasn’t meaning to instill hopelessness or indifference. On the contrary, I tried to point out that you should be equally as mad at OpenAI/Google/the rest of the western AI companies as you are at the DeepSeek. The fact that people are only mad at China and not at the megacorporations in the west does, imo, indicate their biases.

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    • thelucky8@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      @RusAD@lemm.ee

      I tried to point out that you should be equally as mad at OpenAI/Google/the rest of the western AI companies as you are at the DeepSeek

      This exactly is whataboutism. The issue here is DeepSeek. There are many articles here where people are “equally as mad” about OpenAI?Google and the rest of Western AI, but in these threads, you never read, “But China, …”. This whataboutism appears to work only in one direction.

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      • RusAD@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I don’t think this really is whataboutism. If I responded with, for instance, “But ChatGPT is way less energy efficient and wastes tons of water”, then it would be. But I believe I’m comparing apples to apples. And I’m not singling out specifically ChatGPT or Gemini or what have you, I’m saying that every LLM suffers from the same problem, whether it’s from USA, China, Russia, Argentina, Mongolia or Uganda. ChatGPT and Gemini are just big and well-known examples. Also DeepSeek is quite new, at least it’s popularity is, so we’ll have to wait and see whether these “but DeepSeek…” comments will appear.

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• thelucky8@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  @RusAD@lemm.ee

  In addition to what @DdCno1@beehaw.org’s comment, this is not ‘only’ about biases we all have. It is about intentionally intentionally built-in propaganda supporting Chinese state narrative. As I wrote already in this thread, the Chinese government outlined its plan regarding AI in its so-called “AI Capacity Building and Inclusiveness Plan”. It reads:

  [Chinese] Government rhetoric draws a direct line between AI exports and existing initiatives to expand China’s influence overseas, such as Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Global Development Initiative (GDI). In this case, the more influence China has over AI overseas, the more it can dictate the technology’s development in other countries […]

  [According to the Chinese government] AI must not be used to interfere in another country’s internal affairs — language that the PRC has invoked for as long as it has existed, both to bring nations of the global south on board in China’s ongoing efforts to seize Taiwan and to deflect international criticism of its human rights record […]

  The whole article makes a good read.

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  • RusAD@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Yeah, the whole article reads like “China says good things, but actually, they are just bad things in disguise! Chinese AI is cheaper and in some cases better, but actually its all a master plan for world domination! Remember, guys, China bad!!!”

    Of course the software created in China would intentionally try to follow Chinese laws. Just as American software follows the laws of the US. However, China made their models open-source, so people can tinker with them and (possibly) make a fork without the censorship, and run it locally without any data being sent who knows where. While ChatGPT, Gemini and all the rest are closed-source, and you have zero control over them, so you can’t even hope to circumvent the propaganda that’s built into those models.

    But yeah, Tiananmen square 1989, China bad, let’s all stop thinking about anything

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    • DdCno1@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      let’s all stop thinking about anything

      You’re way ahead of us on that front.

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