‘Sputnik moment’: $1tn wiped off US stocks after Chinese firm unveils AI chatbot
Trump calls emergence of DeepSeek a ‘wake-up call’ amid doubts about sustainability of western artificial intelligence boom
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25282200
We’re talking about developments in AI tech, and you want to make it about Tiananmen Square .
Please don't use whataboutism to distract from the core issue here. DeepSeek follows the Chinese government's rules, meaning it has biases intentionally built-in to spread misinformation and propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party. You may read my comment and the source in in this thread.
Breaking news: AI has the same biases as their creators! More at 11
Saying that "everyone is doing it" is called hypernormalization and a common propaganda technique used by autocratic regimes like Russia and China. It's meant to instill feelings of hopelessness and indifference. It is also usually extremely dishonest, since it relies on false equivalencies (like in this case) and/or comparing current state crimes with past state crimes of others.
DeepSeek is designed to follow Chinese state propaganda. ChatGPT is designed to follow American oligarchy propaganda. Each side pushes their own biases. Where is the false equivalence?
Also I wasn't meaning to instill hopelessness or indifference. On the contrary, I tried to point out that you should be equally as mad at OpenAI/Google/the rest of the western AI companies as you are at the DeepSeek. The fact that people are only mad at China and not at the megacorporations in the west does, imo, indicate their biases.
I tried to point out that you should be equally as mad at OpenAI/Google/the rest of the western AI companies as you are at the DeepSeek
This exactly is whataboutism. The issue here is DeepSeek. There are many articles here where people are "equally as mad" about OpenAI?Google and the rest of Western AI, but in these threads, you never read, "But China, ...". This whataboutism appears to work only in one direction.
I don't think this really is whataboutism. If I responded with, for instance, "But ChatGPT is way less energy efficient and wastes tons of water", then it would be. But I believe I'm comparing apples to apples. And I'm not singling out specifically ChatGPT or Gemini or what have you, I'm saying that every LLM suffers from the same problem, whether it's from USA, China, Russia, Argentina, Mongolia or Uganda. ChatGPT and Gemini are just big and well-known examples. Also DeepSeek is quite new, at least it's popularity is, so we'll have to wait and see whether these "but DeepSeek..." comments will appear.
In addition to @DdCno1@beehaw.org's comment, this is not 'only' about biases we all have. It is about intentionally built-in propaganda supporting Chinese state narratives. As I wrote already in this thread, the Chinese government outlined its plan regarding AI in its so-called "AI Capacity Building and Inclusiveness Plan". It reads:
[Chinese] Government rhetoric draws a direct line between AI exports and existing initiatives to expand China’s influence overseas, such as Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Global Development Initiative (GDI). In this case, the more influence China has over AI overseas, the more it can dictate the technology’s development in other countries [...]
[According to the Chinese government] AI must not be used to interfere in another country’s internal affairs — language that the PRC has invoked for as long as it has existed, both to bring nations of the global south on board in China’s ongoing efforts to seize Taiwan and to deflect international criticism of its human rights record [...]
The whole article makes a good read.
[Edit typo.]
Yeah, the whole article reads like "China says good things, but actually, they are just bad things in disguise! Chinese AI is cheaper and in some cases better, but actually its all a master plan for world domination! Remember, guys, China bad!!!"
Of course the software created in China would intentionally try to follow Chinese laws. Just as American software follows the laws of the US. However, China made their models open-source, so people can tinker with them and (possibly) make a fork without the censorship, and run it locally without any data being sent who knows where. While ChatGPT, Gemini and all the rest are closed-source, and you have zero control over them, so you can't even hope to circumvent the propaganda that's built into those models.
But yeah, Tiananmen square 1989, China bad, let's all stop thinking about anything
let’s all stop thinking about anything
You're way ahead of us on that front.
As you and I recently discovered in another thread, you don’t know whataboutism is, and entire account is dedicated to sinophobic comments .
As are your other accounts.
There's nothing sinophobic here. The linked article on China's AI policy cites an official Chinese source. It comes directly from the Chinese government.
Haven't you heard? The truth is sinophobic. Obligatory:
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
Ah, yeah, I forgot:
We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were- cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
