Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang recently declared to the Financial Times that: “China is going to win the AI race.” He later softened his stance, saying the US’s rival was merely “nanoseconds behind,” and that it’s vital America comes out on top “by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide.”
It’s hard to see the economic merit in China’s investments in AI, or anyone’s investment in AI for that matter but the market has never really been rational. But China’s investment in particular is confusing since it’s open source.
I think what they’re going for is to undermine the American AI market. That money flowing into big tech has strategic consequences for China, and economic advantages for America. It’s in China’s interest to demonstrate cheap and free AI to cut off that funding to US tech.
The reason Chinese companies release LLMs as open source isn’t actually confusing either. It’s not being treated as a product, but rather as foundational technology that things will be built upon. Think of it the same way as the current open source infrastructure that underpins the internet. Most companies aren’t trying to monetize Linux directly, rather they use it to build actual products on top of.
There are valid use cases for AI that will achieve tanglible prosuctivity boosts. The consumer-side of AI is just what takes the media focus point. The open source strategy is as you said; to undermine US capital concentration in Silicon Valley.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
It’s hard to see the economic merit in China’s investments in AI, or anyone’s investment in AI for that matter but the market has never really been rational. But China’s investment in particular is confusing since it’s open source.
I think what they’re going for is to undermine the American AI market. That money flowing into big tech has strategic consequences for China, and economic advantages for America. It’s in China’s interest to demonstrate cheap and free AI to cut off that funding to US tech.
AI is being developed in China in a very different way from the west because the material conditions in China are different. https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-ghost-in-the-machine
The reason Chinese companies release LLMs as open source isn’t actually confusing either. It’s not being treated as a product, but rather as foundational technology that things will be built upon. Think of it the same way as the current open source infrastructure that underpins the internet. Most companies aren’t trying to monetize Linux directly, rather they use it to build actual products on top of.
However, dragging the US into a tech race it can’t win is also a factor whether it’s done intentionally by China or not. https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-ai-race-isnt-about-chips-its
There are valid use cases for AI that will achieve tanglible prosuctivity boosts. The consumer-side of AI is just what takes the media focus point. The open source strategy is as you said; to undermine US capital concentration in Silicon Valley.