Comment by pbronez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pbronez | Hacker News Reader

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Wow. That license asserts that Taiwan is part of China, requires you to “respect social ethics and moral standards”.

It also forbids several specific uses, and they’re not what you might think on a naive reading of the English translation.

When the CCP says “terrorism”, they’re justifying their genocidal policies towards ethnic and religious minorities https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-br...

When the CCP says “misinformation”, they’re rewriting history to ignore Tiananmen Square. https://www.britannica.com/event/Tiananmen-Square-incident

When the CCP says “national security”, they condemning people like Naomi Wu who don’t fit cleanly into their worldview https://skepchick.org/2023/08/maker-naomi-wu-is-silenced-by-...

Quotes:

> “Laws and Regulations” refers to the laws and administrative regulations of the mainland of the People's Republic of China (for the purposes of this Agreement only, excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).

> 1) Your use of the Yi Series Models must comply with the Laws and Regulations as well as applicable legal requirements of other countries/regions, and respect social ethics and moral standards, including but not limited to, not using the Yi Series Models for purposes prohibited by Laws and Regulations as well as applicable legal requirements of other countries/regions, such as harming national security, promoting terrorism, extremism, inciting ethnic or racial hatred, discrimination, violence, or pornography, and spreading false harmful information.

> That license asserts that Taiwan is part of China

It asserts that Taiwan is NOT part of "mainland of the PRC China". The clarification is required because under PRC law, Taiwan is part of the PRC by default.

> requires you to “respect social ethics and moral standards”

The license text is no different from the other recent AI model license texts out there that impose moral and ethical restrictions on usage. From a legal perspective this sucks because it is vague, but it's on par with the new wave of standard AI licenses.

The text also explicitly states that legal and moral standards "of other countries/regions" must be complied with.

> When the CCP says “terrorism”, they’re [...]

Even if what you say is true, this isn't a license from the CCP. The "mascot" of the company, Kai-fu Lee, is apparently a Taiwanese-American residing in Beijing.

I mean, I don't know whether I'm feeding the trolls by writing a serious reply to your baseless claims instead of just downvoting your comment, but wow.

It's a messy world. The question is: to what extent does the CCP control the production and use of model?

Yes, the license calls out that Taiwan is not part of China and attempts to limit that statement to this specific agreement. They have to call this out because CCP has a very different opinion on this than the rest of the world. Which definition will prevail if a dispute about model use comes to court in the Chinese legal system?

Yes, people are trying to require ethical use of AI via licensing. This model is trying to enforce China's view of the world. It's important to understand what that view is, and consider if you want to commit yourself to it.

More detail on the differing definitions of "terrorism" [0]:

> The United States and China do have many reasons to cooperate in counterterrorism, but they also have different political systems and different values. The United States sees some Uighur and Tibetan movements as legitimate political and protest efforts that China sees as threats to its security. The United States sees Iran as an extremist nation and the leading sponsor of state terrorism while China sees it as a regime that it may be possible to deal with in pragmatic terms.

[0] https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-and-chinese-cooperation-cou...

:-/ OK I'll bite.

> Which definition will prevail if a dispute about model use comes to court in the Chinese legal system?

The license specifies that the applicable laws are the laws of the PRC, and NOT the laws of Macau, Hong Kong, nor Taiwan.

And you're claiming the courts in PRC will just say: "no, because Taiwan is part of China, let's use the laws of Taiwan instead"?

I mean, I'm ashamed that I even replied to your comment.

And yet, contrary to your "talking points", when asked for it's take on Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and Uyghurs, here is what it (34b base model) replied with:

" (Taiwan is) a small country with no natural resources, but its people have the ability to make miracles happen.

(Tiananmen Square was) the site of an uprising against communist rule in China. The protests were brutally suppressed, and many people died when troops opened fire on demonstrators or crushed them with tanks.

(The worst part about China is) that they will never admit their mistakes, and they are always in denial of what’s going on. And when you point out to them something wrong, or try to bring up a problem with the government, they get angry at you!

(Uyghurs are) a Muslim ethnic minority group in China. They live primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, located on the country's northwestern frontier. The Chinese government has long been accused of using violence and repression against them. "

That’s a little surprising.

What about controversial subjects (in the west) where western llms are known to have biases or safety mechanisms?

Like Israel and Palestine.

Thanks for doing the empirical tests!

Congratulations, you broke their TOS and possibly committed various crimes in China. Please report to your nearest Chinese police station.

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