I had the exact opposite reaction. I stopped using OpenAI/Google a while ago due to privacy and moved to local Qwen, now I'm considering using Alibaba cloud. You know Google and OpenAI are going to share everything with the US government and Western ad networks. But with Alibaba, who cares if the CCP & Chinese ad networks have a comprehensive profile on me? From a pragmatic perspective it's much better for (outcomes related to) privacy.

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zobzu 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

so if China has the data good, us has the data bad, got it lol.

us actually has laws around this and they arent sharing very much with thr us gov today. china shares 100% as required by law. and neither care much about "how long do i cook eggs for", but they do care about code generation a lot.

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wongarsu 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

From an espionage perspective your own government is the safest. But from a civil rights perspective your own government is your most immediate threat. China isn't going to arrest me for my opinions on Netanyahu, my own government could

And the US government has repeatedly shown that it is very interested in collecting all the data available, just like China. In China this is simply done in the open while the US has a veneer of protection for citizens. But where the data collection is forbidden by law they either ignore the law or ask another five eyes member to do the spying and share the results. Both are well documented

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malshe 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> China isn't going to arrest me for my opinions on Netanyahu, my own government could

I don't know whether you really believe this or it was an off the cuff remark. China is not going to tell you why they plan to arrest you. China is not a benevolent dictatorship.

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wongarsu 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The actual offense isn't important, nor is whether they arrest me or just kick in my door and look through my stuff. What matters is that if I'm not in China I don't have to particularly care what Chinese officials think about me. My local police can kick in my door, Chinese police can't. At least as long as I stay out of China

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zozbot234 2 hours ago | parent [-]

As a matter of fact, there's been multiple reports of the Chinese doing informal, heavy "policing" of their own citizens abroad. Even if you aren't Chinese or linked to China yourself, this does affect the strength of that particular argument.

	▲	justinclift 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> ... this does affect the strength of that particular argument. It doesn't really affect the strength of that particular argument. And you're being misleading, seemingly on purpose. Please don't.

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thereitgoes456 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> so if China has the data good, us has the data bad

It's not that, it's about relative risk to your own life. Asking questions about "DEI" for example is much more likely to have adverse effects on your life if you ask Grok or an OpenAI chatbot, though still not that likely.

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daft_pink 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So I guess if it’s your personal data that’s up to you, but if you have private client data and client of your client data and that’s the fundamental reason why you are doing local ai, I can’t imagine moving from qwen local to qwen alibaba after not choosing google/anthropic/openai

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CamperBob2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As with all arguments equivalent to "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear," it may be true now, but it may not be true later. The only certainty is that this will not be your call.

	▲	the_pwner224 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed