> China can (and does) use the models to influence the west. They train in false information about Taiwan and Hong Kong. Or pretend like history is in favor of China.

I am not Chinese and I'm not defending the Chinese, but I see this argument come up a lot.

In practical terms it is US-sponsored FUD.

Why ?

Because the hard reality is that what you say is simply not going to affect 99.9999999999% of users.

Is it realistically going to affect anyone using an LLM in coding ? No.

Is it realistically going to affect anyone using an LLM in $anything_else_not_politically_sensitive ? No.

Does anyone seriously use LLMs for researching politically sensitive matters ? No.

Just as there is plenty of information out there on the US's less than perfect history, there is also plenty of information out there on the various Chinese politically sensitive matters. You do not need a Chinese LLM to find out about it, all you need is a search engine.

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girvo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

People absolutely use LLMs to research politically sensitive topics.

I wish they wouldn’t, but people use LLMs as their general search engines now.

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traceroute66 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> People absolutely use LLMs to research politically sensitive topics.

Note I used the word "seriously", I meant it in its fullest form, i.e. serious people.

I'm not interested in what-if arguments based on "you can't fix stupid".

Stupid people also blindly believe whatever a US LLM tells them without any form of verification, hallucinations and all.

Most people on this planet would agree that a Chinese LLM is perfectly usable for all tasks except asking about politically sensitive matters.

And for most people on the planet, that is just fine. They can get their political information elsewhere.

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handle584 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>> I meant it in its fullest form, i.e. serious people.

Is academia serious enough? Well ever since LLM journals' inboxes are bombarded with submissions, and this applies across fields. Like OP said, ppl serious or not are asking LLM about any stuff, also serious or not.

	▲	traceroute66 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Is academia serious enough? Of all the people, academics should know better than to get their answers from LLMs.