Given the US government’s latest stunt with Fable, this is looking more and more like the future.
Can’t rely on strategic products if they’re gated by capricious actors.
Open weight models are basically immune to that
Can’t rely on strategic products if they’re gated by capricious actors.
Open weight models are basically immune to that
Somewhat. The US Gov can make it illegal to transact with, download, use, etc. foreign open weight models.
Of course, enforcement will be difficult for individuals (businesses will comply by default, and they would all be pulled off Github and other US based hosting locations if they went the sanctions route). But, we are also quickly going down the road of frightening levels of mass surveillance, which could aid enforcement.
The Fable situation sets a very dangerous precedent, and I'm not looking forward the future here. We are losing the fight for information and computing freedom.
A lot more expensive thought, but the added benefit is that you can train on your companies data improving performance of the model.
VPN usage would go up, to get the banned models.
Businesses outside of the US, like the EU, might have significant competitive advantages.
Also the marketing of them getting to say "our models are so dangerous" only a few companies or select users are allowed to use (benchmark) them would help keep their valuations high.
Won't say it publicly? Anthropic is openly and explicitly saying it publicly. Here: https://darioamodei.com/post/policy-on-the-ai-exponential
> AI companies that develop advanced AI models must have strong security standards that protect their model weights
If the model is open-weight then there's nothing to protect, so the only way to fulfill this requirement is to make open-weights illegal.
Off-topic, but tech-bros fixation on LotR (benevolent[0] or not[1]) makes me sick to my stomach.
[0] https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/27/earendil/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithril_Capital , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries
It’s a very broad law and likely not legal, but it’s going to take a long time to be fought through the courts, and in the meanwhile people will probably be arrested for creating or sharing a file for something that may be able to become a gun part.
You’re correct that it shouldn’t be a thing but unfortunately American society is not in a good place right now
They don't have to criminalize the act of downloading open weight models to effectively block access (to foreign open weight models, they have less levers to pull for US based models).
With sanctions and commerce rules though, they can unilaterally prevent all US based businesses from hosting & using them. They will need to be pulled off huggingface, github, gitlab, etc. ISPs could be put on the hook for folks torrenting them as well because technically that could be considered providing serivces to a sanctioned entity. There doesn't need to be monetary exchange.
Likewise, they can use export controls & sanctions to prohibit US companies and individuals from contributing to foreign open source projects as well.
If it went to court, the DOJ would argue that model weights are not speech because it is machine-readable parameters, and not used as a medium of human communication like source code.
Lastly, first amendment rights are unfortunately not absolute since the PATRIOT act. US Gov just has to declare a national security threat and all your rights go out the window.
Presumably you mean in the USA (otherwise foreign means nothing)
Practically, the sanctions/restrictions will be imposed, due to fear of losing access to US market/US infrastructure.
It’d force people to run inference locally, and that’d expose the actual $/perf of the models instead of keeping it secret then propping it up with circular revenue and blatant securities fraud.
If we don’t do something like that, we won’t have much of an AI industry post-bubble.
Anyone else remember solyndra?
Then again, just because business controls politics doesn't mean there's much more decentralization or openness, either. In the end, the main advantage of this model was predictability - sure, we have an "inner circle" that forces its policies in both cases, but the businesses are at least predictable in their decision making, always chasing profit, based on hard numbers, unlike the other side chasing whatever flavor of ideology they believe in (or want to sell) this month... Wait. I just recalled "colonies on Mars" and "metaverse," and the cognitive dissonance made me blank out for a sec here.
In any case: while the Chinese model seems to have some upsides, especially compared to the current situation in a few other places on the globe, I don't believe it has a significantly higher chance of helping us achieve a "brighter future". I may be depressed, but in virtually every scenario from this point, I can only see a bleak future ahead of us. Getting to AGI under current conditions makes for completely unpredictable societal and political chaos, yet not getting there (and fast) risks the bubble bursting (causing, of course, unpredictable economic and, by extension, societal and political chaos). The longer the current situation persists, the lower the probability of finding an off-ramp that won't upend everybody's and their dog's lives. Yet, there is no incentive to back off from the race either.
I really wonder what's next - what kind of poop will finally hit the fan, and when exactly?