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Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

> GLM export controls incoming? I predict Commerce will force OpenRouter, HuggingFace to take some open models down within the next few months.

I’m sceptical they could find the legal framework to do this even if they wanted to

They have legal authority to (a) prevent export of US goods/services; (b) ban imports of physical goods; (c) ban transactions (including purchasing services or license agreements) with foreign firms

But I’m not aware of any legal authority which lets them ban US firms from running a Chinese-developed open source AI model in the United States, if they are at arms length from the vendor, and aren’t using it for government contracts or regulated applications

Possibly they could order HuggingFace/etc to suspend Chinese accounts. But if someone in the US (or a third country) downloads the model from China then reuploads it to a US server, completely independently of the vendor - where is the legal hook to prohibit that?

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They could ban payment processors from processing payments to any hosts of GML 5.2, despite the open weights the vast majority of people will be using cloud providers to get access since it is to heavy to host for 99% of people.

This would be extremely heavy handed and probably end up accelerating the loss of the virtual US monopoly of payment network. The reast of the world isn't going to let the US dictate that only they get the frontier models whether their US made or otherwise

> They could ban payment processors from processing payments to any hosts of GML 5.2

Can they actually though? Do they have legal authority to tell a payment processor that it has to block transactions of a legal US company, just because the company is hosting a Chinese-developed open source model? I’m sceptical

And what about companies (e.g. AWS) that let you “bring your own model”?

It would be extremely heavy handed but the administration has sanctioned the International Criminal Court judges such that they basically have no access to the Wests modern financial system. I think domestic US providers would have to deal with different ways but someone like Herzner could easily be cut off from the financial system if the administration doesn't feel that they are adequately blocking the model

> It would be extremely heavy handed but the administration has sanctioned the International Criminal Court judges

That's sanctioning specific individuals for specific acts they performed which the US claims contravene its interests and those of its allies.

I don't agree with the ICC sanctions, but it really can't be compared with the proposal "sanction any company, even US domestic entities, which use a Chinese-developed open source model".

In fact, I think part of what enables the US to sanction them (under US law) is the fact they are neither US citizens nor residents; if they were US citizens living in the United States, I don't think the President would have the legal authority to impose those kinds of sanctions.

They could sanction Hetzner–because it is a German firm based in Germany. I don't see how they could sanction a US firm based in the US whose owners and staff were US citizens.

Also, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal decision Van Loon v Treasury (Nov 2024) is relevant–it held that IEEPA (the law used to sanction ICC officials) couldn't be used to sanction the Tornado Cash smart contract system, since open source code wasn't "foreign property" under IEEPA.

Swapping the footgun for a huge long-range boomerang doesn’t mean it’s not going to eventually swing around and whack you in the back of the head.

100% agree and don't think it will come to that but I won't completely put it past this administration

Label AI as porn and the payment processors will cut their ties automatically.

> I’m sceptical they could find the legal framework to do this even if they wanted to

I agree, my only caveat is that the current administration has shown it's willing to go beyond aggressive regulatory interpretations to questionable and outright implausible interpretations. As we've seen recently, the federal courts and SCOTUS are overturning most of these but that can take a year or more to resolve. The one positive light is they seem to push the hardest on certain culture war issues (immigration, voting, districting, etc). AI doesn't seem like a core hot button issue for the White House and there is a strong pro-AI / business faction.

OpenRouter or Huggingface should consider moving to Switzerland

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