The problem with censorship isn't that it degrades performance. The problem is that if the censorship is unilaterally dictated by a government then it becomes a tool for suppression, especially as people use AI more and more for their primary source of information.

A company might choose to avoid erotica because it clashes with their brand, or avoid certain topics because they're worried about causing harms. That is very different than centralized, unilateral control over all information sources.

I'm certainly not in favour of censorship, it just strikes me as silly that it's the first thing people "test" as if it's some cunning insight. Anyone not living under a rock knows tiananmen is censored in anything chinese

>That is very different than centralized

I guess? If the government's modus operandi is the key thing for you when you get access to a new model then yeah maybe it's not for you.

I personally find the western closed model centralised under megacorps model far more alarming, but when a new opus gets released I don't run to tell everyone on hn that I've discovered the new Opus isn't open weight. That would just be silly...