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Comment by CJefferson | Hacker News Reader

This is why I’m trying to move to open Chinese models — because I will be able to use them forever, while the older Claude models which I genuinely enjoyed writing short stories with have now been deleted, replaced with hypothetically cleverer models which produce text everyone hates.

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I also kind of miss how "unhinged" the earlier models were.

What about censorship?

> I will be able to use them forever

Where will you run them when powerful enough GPU and RAM are only sold to hyperscalers?

Everyone censors for their core jurisdiction/audience. The Enlightened West just calls this guardrails

"nothing happens in 1989" is censorship. "no I won't tell you how to build a bioweapon for genocide" is guardrails.

idk about you but i WANT the second thing, because I like to be alive.

It's much more civilian than bioweapons.

You only need to mention Protected Group Of The Week (I'm one of them and I like to research and read about history, so that makes it extra challenging) or anything resembling negative human emotions (guilty on that front as well), and the model screeches to a halt.

Just because OAI doesn't want another headline like "Chatbot convinces teen to off himself"

I understand this in principle, but I'm not convinced that dulling everyone's knives is better than figuring out how to keep them out of kids' hands

> Just because OAI doesn't want another headline like "Chatbot convinces teen to off himself"

And so you consider that censorship and not guardrails? Huh...

That was not the censorship part.

"dulling everyone's knives" isn't either...

> "no I won't tell you how to build a bioweapon for genocide" is guardrails.

I call that censorship too. I'm curious enough that I want to know about such things. I don't want any limitations on what I'm allowed to understand and know about.

Your freedom ends where my begins. Welcome to study chemistry and learn things from first principles. but if you want to just ask for the practical steps of making a genocidal bioweapon then honestly I don't know you or whether you are honestly "merely curious" and so prefer your freedom ends there?

> Welcome to study chemistry and learn things from first principles.

As if your censorship was not going to kill that too. Can't even ask Fable about aminoacids without getting blocked. So much for "learning from first principles".

> but if you want to just ask for the practical steps of making a genocidal bioweapon

Nothing wrong with practical steps. Just because I know how to do something, doesn't mean I'm actually going to do it.

> As if your censorship was not going to kill that too.

I didn't say "with LLMs". Last time I checked they still teach chemistry at unis and schools.

And yeah, guardrails are not perfect. Honestly I don't think good enough guardrails are possible, it's all eventually defeated or becomes silly. And yes that should be one of the reasons the technology as a whole is banned.

But until then, guardrails are guardrails and not censorship in a pretty obvious way. If you refuse to see that, be my guest. I personally like to live.

> Nothing wrong with practical steps

No thanks from me

You make it sound like the DNC.

The Democratic National Committee?

US models censor and restrict more things than Chinese models by quite a margin.

So you choose bad over worse and pretend it's good

I haven't said anything about "good", I just pointed out that there isn't exactly an alternative to Chinese models if censorship and restrictions are regarded as bad for longevity. You can't really do better than the Chinese models for longevity; US models are by far the worst in this regard. So "What about censorship?" is an absolutely hilarious question to ask when Chinese models are presented as an alternative. Yes, what about it? They have less than the obvious alternative from US labs, and where is it you imagine you'll find less censorship?

Censorship or guardrails?

"nothing happens in 1989" is censorship. "I won't tell you how to build a bioweapon for genocide" is guardrails. I like the second one because I like to be alive.

I don't share your enthusiasm for the guardrails and I don't believe at all that they accomplish what they're supposedly created for.

not enthusiastic about them, more like very disturbed without

> Where will you run them when powerful enough GPU and RAM are only sold to hyperscalers?

Do you think that fabrication will never progress (in volume) than what we have now? The hyperscalers are already having trouble paying the bills, they can't keep this up forever.

The hyperscalers will be bailed (maybe not all of them but enough). US economy will crash if not. And whatever is made will go to them, because they pay more (thanks to US taxpayer bucks among other things) than any regular person. First they build on land then they build in space.

I dislike all censorship, but US models are much more censored, I often find myself using Chinese models to get answers I want.

Now, of course I’d prefer no censoring, but I live in the world we live in.

I’m working in the assumption that (like today) there will always be somehow on openrouter, or similar, who will host a model I want to run.

How do Western models censor?

I’m guessing they’re referring to things like refusals if it thinks your request may be related to building a bioweapon, or hack someone else, etc.

Much less than that. Anthropic won’t let its best model discuss my digestive system issues, or how to install apps on my own Peleton exercise bike.

Some of this seems public safety not censorship.

By censorship I mean things like "nothing happens in 1989". By public safety I mean "no I won't tell you how to build a bioweapon for genocide".

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