Anthropic's CEO says DeepSeek shows US export rules are working

I’m not a fan of the shenanigans China pulls but I legitimately don’t understand what the point is trying to play whack-a-mole against all these Chinese companies

The attempt to slow China's AI development through tariffs and trade restrictions seems misguided for two key reasons. First, as we've seen with Russia, trade restrictions often just lead to the development of alternative supply routes through intermediary countries rather than true isolation.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, restrictions may actually accelerate Chinese innovation. The "necessity is the mother of invention" principle suggests that trade barriers could push Chinese AI companies to develop novel solutions and optimizations, potentially making them more competitive in the global AI race, not less. This is particularly relevant in the context of large language models, where alternative approaches might emerge from working under constraints.

The current situation indeed resembles a Sputnik moment, but the strategy of using trade barriers might be counterproductive to maintaining technological leadership.

"To be clear, the goal here is not to deny China or any other authoritarian country the immense benefits in science, medicine, quality of life, and so on that come from very powerful AI systems. Everyone should be able to benefit from AI. The goal is to prevent them from gaining military dominance.”

A moralizing statement that weasels out of the implication.

This would be a more straightforward way to say it: Export restrictions are necessary to prevent China from gaining military dominance, even if those restrictions deny China the immense benefits in science, medicine, quality of life, and so on that come from very powerful AI systems.