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Crime Government AI China

Senator Hawley Proposes Jail Time For People Who Download DeepSeek 211

Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a bill that would criminalize the import, export, and collaboration on AI technology with China. What this means is that "someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass," reports 404 Media. From the report: Hawley introduced the legislation, titled the Decoupling America's Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act, on Wednesday of last year. "Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States," Senator Hawley said in a statement. "America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation."

Hawley's statement explicitly says that he introduced the legislation because of the release of DeepSeek, an advanced AI model that's competitive with its American counterparts, and which its developers claimed was made for a fraction of the cost and without access to as many and as advanced of chips, though these claims are unverified. Hawley's statement called DeepSeek "a data-harvesting, low-cost AI model that sparked international concern and sent American technology stocks plummeting." Hawley's statement says the goal of the bill is to "prohibit the import from or export to China of artificial intelligence technology, "prohibit American companies from conducting AI research in China or in cooperation with Chinese companies," and "Prohibit U.S. companies from investing money in Chinese AI development."

Senator Hawley Proposes Jail Time For People Who Download DeepSeek

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  • sounds good! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crgrace ( 220738 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @07:52PM (#65139787)

    Great, if our oligarchs can't compete fairly, let's criminalize the competition!

    Yay for US innovation!

    • Re:sounds good! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:53PM (#65139865) Homepage

      Why do you think the US slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports?

      Neither Ford nor GM nor Stellantis could compete on price, quality, or features... so TARIFFS!

      Someone will probably comment on China having cheaper labor... and they do, since the production lines on new EVs are almost fully automated and practically don't need any workers at all.

      Someone else might mention China subsidizing their vehicles... which we did too with the EV tax credits.

      Someone else might mention China subsidizing their battery manufacturers... which we could have done too, but didn't, since America refuses to invest in technology and since the American automaker's idea of innovation is building ever larger, ever fatter vehicles for its ever larger, ever fatter populace.

      On which they could charge more money, of course. They *could* have taken those proceeds and invested in the same technology... but choose instead to spend billions on useless stock buybacks.

      We deserve what happens to us..

      • Re:sounds good! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @09:45PM (#65139981)

        Why do you think the US slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports?

        Neither Ford nor GM nor Stellantis could compete on price, quality, or features... so TARIFFS!

        Stellantis is even trying with EVs, but Ford and GM are both growing the number of cars sold, and GM in the last 12 month has doubled their market share to over 12%. Meanwhile Tesla's market share has been dropping steadily for the last three years.

        Why the tarrifs on Chinese EVs? Two reasons. First, the Chinese companies are guilty of dumping, selling cars below cost to gain market share. The Chinese companies are able to do this because they are heavily subsidized by the Chinese government, which realizes that predatory tactics in the global EV market will allow China to project economic, political, and military strength. Second, EVs are roving camera and sensors that collect valuable data, data that is not only valuable for AV training but also for military purposes.

        • Re:sounds good! (Score:5, Informative)

          by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @12:56AM (#65140179) Homepage

          "First, the Chinese companies are guilty of dumping, selling cars below cost to gain market share. The Chinese companies are able to do this because they are heavily subsidized by the Chinese government..."

          Ah, no. Rather than direct subsidies, the Chinese government has primarily supported its EV industry through low-interest loans, tax incentives, infrastructure development (such as charging stations), and consumer subsidies for buyers. Many EV companies, including BYD and Nio, received state-backed loans or credit lines from government-affiliated banks, but these are expected to be repaid.

          Second, China's aggressive push into EVs wasn’t just about environmental goals or industrial policy—it was also a strategic workaround to avoid dependency on Western automakers, who had dominated the internal combustion engine (ICE) market through extensive patent control.

          Instead of spending decades trying to catch up in an industry where Western companies had already established dominance, China bet big on EVs—an emerging technology with far fewer entrenched players and patents. By focusing on battery technology, electric drivetrains, and software integration, China positioned itself as an industry leader in a field where Western automakers were still transitioning.

          Government policies accelerated this shift, with support for battery production, supply chains, and consumer adoption. Today, Chinese firms like BYD, CATL, and Nio have leapfrogged many Western companies in key EV components, especially in battery cost, efficiency, and manufacturing scale.

          So rather than just subsidies or government intervention, China’s EV dominance is partly a result of strategic technological avoidance—sidestepping ICE patents to build an entirely new industry where they could lead rather than follow.

          Something we could have done. Instead, and as I noted... we made bigger trucks and SUVs.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Aighearach ( 97333 )

            When you start right off by being dishonest and pretending the person said "direct subsidies," that's super-weak sauce. You're trying to construct a straw man by misrepresenting a person, in a reply to them. So the dishonesty extends even to the form; you're not actually trying to reply, you're just hanging your propaganda onto a person's comment.

            And yet, your straw-man doesn't even catch fire or get knocked over. You agree they "bet big" with massive industry subsidies, so as not to have to "spend... decad

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              When you start right off by being dishonest and pretending the person said "direct subsidies,"

              But then you get into all the indirect subsidies that western countries have bumped into the car industry and ICE vehicles in particular. Whole wars have been fought to keep the price of oil low.

            • by flink ( 18449 )

              low-interest loans, tax incentives, infrastructure development (such as charging stations), and consumer subsidies for buyers

              And yet, your straw-man doesn't even catch fire or get knocked over. You agree they "bet big" with massive industry subsidies, so as not to have to "spend... decades trying to catch up."

              "low-interest loans, tax incentives, infrastructure development (such as charging stations), and consumer subsidies for buyers" are exactly the things we do when we want to encourage investment in an i

            • When you start right off by being dishonest and pretending the person said "direct subsidies,"

              He didn't pretend anything. He assumed from context the person was trying to imply "direct subsidies" because every country has so-called indirect subsidies for their manufacturing industries and so an accusation of indirect subsidies would be pointless. The world didn't put tariffs on the US for repeatedly bailing out the Detroit automakers over the last few decades, or even for spending trillions on wars and dire

            • by shmlco ( 594907 )

              China did indeed bet on EVs being the future, and it looks like they're going to win that bet. US automakers bet on making overpriced, oversized trucks... that no one can now afford and that few outside the US even want.

              Further, the parent implied each vehicle was "subsidized" so it could be "dumped" below cost.

              The plants that built the cars and batteries were "subsidized" to the point of being given low-interest loans that they have to pay back, but the vehicles aren't subsidized, nor are they sold below c

        • Reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bussdriver ( 620565 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @03:58AM (#65140341)

          Not true. So many people in denial... when is it going to hit??

          China is out performing the USA in every way which is not impossible given how poorly we have been doing. China progressed from bottom to closing in on the top in less time than any nation in history. The momentum continues despite them slowing.

          What is the top cost for GM? Workers: healthcare.

          Why do 3rd world dumps fail to progress and compete? Lack of infrastructure. There are places without free police, free firefighters, free roads, right-of-way public land (for trains or roads,) cheap water, free educated workers. It is really expensive to privately build and maintain infrastructure - paying private police or fire for example. These are actually simple problems like insurance where bye collective effort saves significantly (and non-profit saves even more! profit % vs waste % -- some corruption is fine as long as it costs less than greedy profit... which itself is a corruption; unless your religion is mammon, greed is a flaw.)

          Not only does China have free healthcare, their government supports any infrastructure that helps the nation. Their electricity is cheaper, their grid is cheaper, their phone system is cheaper, their trains are cheaper...(our private trains are owned by foreign companies. We can't put in new rails without a decade of lawsuits paying TOP dollar for the land.) It is not just the cheap labor they have and the crazy inhumane work hours. Oh, they graduate more STEM each year than we have college students! But our better education system is being undermined so that edge shrinks but getting within a few % of ours is more than good enough. They'll invest to get the 0.001 seconds to win what's reasonably a tie race... and so will we-- but only when it's sports.

          We can't actually compete. Tariffs can be reasonable to balance out the benefits of human rights abuses but we never care to do that. We don't care if our Walmart shopping eliminates tons of local jobs over time as they already did - then after losing our jobs we go right to the people who hurt us. We also hand over everything to China to freely copy because short term we'll make money on their terms...short term. We will ship multiple components around the planet to build something while they can find most of them bicycling thru Shenzhen. It's idiotic how we ship USA organic chickens to China to process and ship back again! Oh, china finds way to subsidize shipping too. One was accepting our recycling to pay their gas and we idiotically went single stream recycling...they didn't care about recycling it and we didn't really either. Now they won't accept as much.

          Battery tech moved there years ago; along with every innovation because we make it all over there like they won't figure it out and improve upon it. They have and innovations are increasing. Oh, we have IP laws crippling innovation with a huge amount of $ blown on an IP industry that contributes nothing but added overhead when it's not stiffing progress! From math patents to university researchers unable to afford to use their own patented inventions (because we cut funding, they sell rights out to private funding. we subsidize research infrastructure but then it's fruits be privately owned. oh and remember science journals?)

          We have so much legal graft we make corrupt shitholes look like the amateurs they are. Now we'll have everybody dislike us and push them to circumvent us while they plot to replace the US dollar that is the source of our power. Before we go broke we may desperately try violently to hold on but that will fail. economics always wins.

        • Why the tarrifs on Chinese EVs? Two reasons. First, the Chinese companies are guilty of dumping, selling cars below cost to gain market share.

          There's nothing wrong with dumping, especially in a market you're not in. It's literally a business strategy, and not long term viable and thus not one that should involve tariffs.

          The Chinese companies are able to do this because they are heavily subsidized by the Chinese government

          Now here's where you're starting to make sense, so one needs to look into how much subsidy was actually in effect. The EU did the hard research on this, which is why they implemented a variable tariffs from 7.8% to 35.3%. So in the worst possible case, you're still way off the stupidly high protectionist figure that America came u

      • "Someone else might mention China subsidizing their battery manufacturers"

        What if China and the US subsidized battery recycling over strip-mining more mountains?

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Someone else might mention China subsidizing their vehicles... which we did too with the EV tax credits."
        EV tax credits did not subsidize exports and they applied to imported vehicles, you moron.

        "Someone else might mention China subsidizing their battery manufacturers... which we could have done too, but didn't, since America refuses to invest..."
        because America refuses to invest in illegal dumping to harm other country's economies.

        "... the American automaker's idea of innovation is building ever larger, e

        • Re:sounds good! (Score:4, Informative)

          by Rujiel ( 1632063 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @10:22AM (#65140853)

          "because America refuses to invest in illegal dumping to harm other country's economies."

          Maximum ignorance attained. There was plenty of dumping after NAFTA, countries like Jamaica were flooded with American products priced cheaper than locals could provide. The biggest online retailer in the country Amazon has many times in the past taken a loss on goods so that it can crush comoetitors (ser: baby diapers). This is common practice for the US. Your high horse hss no legs or body.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )
        The US using laws and tarrifs to restrict vehicle imports is nothing new. They designed the diesel emissions regulations expressly to keep Japanese pickups out of the US which is why they're so different to European regs (or the ROTW for that matter). They were designed to protect Ford and GM pickup sales because a Toyota Hilux, despite being more expensive will last forever, so people won't need to buy a new pickup every few years. This is nothing new.

        There's a reason when CNN cuts to a 10 second clip o
    • Yay for US innovation!

      It's not very innovative. Banning software is perhaps new to the US but countries like China have been banning software they do not want people to use for ages. So if you do not want people to use Chinese software how about setting an example by not using Chinese governance techniques?

    • Re:sounds good! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @04:32AM (#65140365) Homepage Journal

      It's a worrying sign of a dying economy. When you give up trying to compete and instead just start banning and slapping tariffs on things, the rot has already set in and it's basically an admission of defeat.

  • Bizarro world (Score:5, Interesting)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @07:54PM (#65139795)

    Where the non-profit OpenAI is for-profit and closed, and the entire system conspires against actually open FOSS that comes from the fucking CCP

    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Well, it's not really open, only the weights are open. But you can use them with another engine. However I don't think any of the engines are open.

      Still, it's open in comparison to, e.g., OpenAI.

      • llama.cpp, which 99.9999999% of everyone who has ever run DeepSeek will be using, is as open as it gets.
      • Huh? It runs on huggingface, vllm, and ollama now.

        Huggingface is literally working on reproducing the whole model from scratch based on the papers, but without the CCP "suggestions." vllm is open source [github.com]. ollama is open source [github.com]. torch is open source. your GPU's firmware is proprietary but no one cares.

        I agree that "open weights" is a bunch of bullshit (if they could magically encrypt the weights somehow, they would in many cases), but what do you mean by "engine"?

        • I agree that "open weights" is a bunch of bullshit (if they could magically encrypt the weights somehow, they would in many cases), but what do you mean by "engine"?

          Fuck, don't even say that out loud.
          From a technical perspective, it's ridiculously easy to do, given that the GPU firmware is, as you noted, proprietary.

      • by Njovich ( 553857 )

        There is an osi definition for AI: https://opensource.org/ai/open... [opensource.org]. There is some discussion on whether the information they provide on their training data is sufficient. To match the definition they don't have to supply the training data but have enough explanation on it. However, they do provide some description. It may not be entirely realistic to get companies to share what they trained on in too much detail, given the potential for legal consequences.

        For the rest, it's pretty damn open in the sense t

    • The CCP, at least in theory, is commie.

      Open source follows the Marxist principle: "From each according to their ability. To each according to their needs."

      So, there's nothing inherently paradoxical about the CCP supporting open source.

      It's more surprising they don't do more of it. Thriving open source ecosystems benefit China.

      • Communists might like open-source software, but that doesn't mean open-source software is communist.

        Developers contribute willingly to open-source projects. They don't have the fruits of their labor taken from them forcefully.

        • They don't have the fruits of their labor taken from them forcefully.

          That distinction is purely political.

          Am I employed to work on open-source?
          Then it's as taken forcefully from me as it is from your average commie.

          Sure, the conditions of their labor, and the protections from the master they work for are certainly different (to non-existent in extant communist systems), but ultimately, Soviet workers were employed. The state merely controlled the economics of the businesses.
          People could quit, and go find new jobs. They were paid money, with which they could buy goods.

  • by votsalo ( 5723036 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:08PM (#65139805)
    Why doesn't he propose a wall that separates the US internet from the rest of the world? To keep the US safe.
  • Marching Morons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:09PM (#65139807) Journal

    It'd be one thing if they were banning remote access to DeepSeek servers and their API. They control that, and are likely using queries and incoming data for future training. Sure, starve that - that would be consistent with the current stance against TikTok, DJI, etc. phoning home and being threats to US privacy and national security.

    Banning access to a released set of open weights that you download and run locally makes zero sense. It's data you're using locally - it has no capability of phoning home.

    Not to mention, that the license allows for commercial use. So someone outside of China could modify DeepSeek by fine tuning it, or better yet, ablating the CCP censor expert in the mixture of experts that comprises the 671b training model, thereby freeing it of CCP bias, and then either republishing it, or hosting the "freedom" version of DeepSeek on servers here in the USA.

    There's also the research aspect - for our models to improve, we need to test and assess other models. Not being able to download and access models like DeepSeek means we would no longer be able to conduct research to assess and validate those models within the USA. Anyone remember the stem cell research ban?

    Knowing how brain dead politicians are, they're probably employing the fruit of the poisoned tree is itself poisoned argument. Even if DeepSeek was freed of bias and republished in a tuned form, we would be forbidden from using it, or even conducting red team research on it.

    Now, maybe I'm overreacting because clueless politicians don't understand the difference between an open weight model you run locally and an app you download to your phone that pipes your data straight to China. But if the end result of the law is the same - a ban on local usage, then I'm going to stand up and point out that they're being idiots.

    • Re:Marching Morons (Score:5, Informative)

      by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:29PM (#65139837) Journal

      Ok, reading over the text of the bill, it is very broad:

      "(a) PROHIBITION ON IMPORTATION.â"On and after the date that is 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the importation into the United States of artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence technology or intellectual property developed or produced in the Peopleâ(TM)s Republic of China is prohibited."

      "(6) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.â"The term ââintellectual propertyâ(TM)â(TM) meansâ"(A) any work protected by a copyright
      under title 17, United States Code;(B) any property protected by a patent granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office under title 35, United States Code;
      (C) any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, that is registered as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office under the Act entitled ââAn Act to provide for the registration and protection of trademarks used in commerce, to carryout the provisions of certain international con
      ventions, and for other purposesâ(TM)â(TM), approved July 5, 1946 (commonly known as the ââLanham Actâ(TM)â(TM) or the ââTrademark Act of 1946â(TM)â(TM)) (15 U.S.C. 1051 et seq.); or (D) a trade secret (as defined in section 1839 of title 18, United States Code)"

      So - read as written, it basically bans the import of ANY intellectual property from China. Forget all the window dressing about this being about AI. I would interpret this to include any open source code contributors to ANY project, any designs created in China, which would then apply to any goods sold out of China using said designs, etc. In other words, this could be interpreted as a complete ban of all goods and services originating out of China.

      Assuming that a total ban of all goods and services was not the goal, you have to ask the question - what intern using which shitty LLM (gemini, is this you?) wrote this, and who in Josh Hawley's staff didn't even bother to get a half-decent lawyer to review this before putting it out into public?

      • Text of the bill I am referring to as of 5:30pm Pacific time, Feb 3rd:

        https://www.hawley.senate.gov/... [senate.gov]

      • I just realized, if this was meant as a ban on all Chinese developed/produced intellectual property, this would include any Japanese anime that subcontracts to a studio in China. Any software that uses algorithms or data licensed from a Chinese firm. And probably any research papers published out of China.

        Anker products would suddenly be persona non grata. As would anything from DJI. TikTok for sure would not survive unless they threw away all of their existing source code. Forget the 100% tariff on Ch

        • by jonwil ( 467024 )

          There are commits in the Linux Kernel from Chinese developers. If the law actually goes as far as is being pointed out, it would potentially make anything that runs Linux illegal.

      • by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Huh. So I've just finished reading "The Three Body Problem" by Liu Cixin. Good thing I live in Canada where (so far...) we're out of Sen. Hawley's clutches... gotta crack down on the Chinese intellectual property!

        • Sure, enjoy it for another 30 days, but if you don't hurry up and become a state you might be annexed as a territory.

          Hopefully not... I'm rooting for you!

      • I wonder if Apple's lawyers have read this.

        • by Alumoi ( 1321661 )

          Read that? They, along with their ilk from Microsoft and Google, wrote it.

          • You think Apple wants all their manufactured products banned in the US? (Not to mention much of their software, given how much FOSS is part of their underlying operating systems, presumably FreeBSD had a few commits from Chinese contributors over the years that they unwittingly pulled in...)

            I'm curious to know what's the long game for Apple here... I mean, maybe there's some twelve-dimensional chess thing I'm missing that somehow means Apple ends up on top and owning everything once their products are banne

      • Re:Marching Morons (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve ( 949321 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @10:27AM (#65140865)

        Assuming that a total ban of all goods and services was not the goal, you have to ask the question - what intern using which shitty LLM (gemini, is this you?) wrote this, and who in Josh Hawley's staff didn't even bother to get a half-decent lawyer to review this before putting it out into public?

        You and some others don't understand that Hawley doesn't really expect this to become law and that's not the point. Here's what you need to know. I'll try to keep Americanisms to a minimum so those not from the USA can understand easier what's going on here.

        Hawley is a Senator from a very hard core Republican state. Basically, as long as he doesn't commit a crime, and maybe even if he did, he will get re-elected for as long as he wants to keep being a Senator. He's a huge Trump supporter and as such, he is positioning himself as a possible Trump replacement down the road. The point of this bill is not to actually get it passed, which is why it wasn't written with more care. It's to follow his leader, Trump, and make a lot of noise about something. The point is the noise. It's not about actually getting it passed. And when it predictably goes nowhere, he can simply claim "I tried to pass a bill to protect this country that I love from evil China AI, but the evil communist Democrats kept it from passing" even though the Republicans control the Senate. Most of the voters in his state will simply accept that as fact.

    • Obligatory links missing from above post:
      Wikipedia for The Marching Morons [wikipedia.org]
      Project Gutenberg Copy [gutenberg.org]

      Some may not know, but this is the root story that inspired Idiocracy. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:13PM (#65139815)

    Code is speech. And he's trying to deny free speech as usual violating the Constitution.

  • Priorities (Score:4, Informative)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:23PM (#65139827) Homepage

    Funny how we can still get over-the-counter medicines [walmart.com] manufactured by "our greatest adversary", though. In case you're not seeing it, the picture with the barcode is where it says "PRODUCT OF CHINA" on the label, and yes, I've been to Walmart recently and a surprisingly large portion of their generic drugs are made in China.

    Methinks the stuff that gets ingested is a bigger potential threat than some AI software, but seeing this situation from a more logical perspective is likely one of the many reasons why I'm not a politician.

  • US is turning into idiocracy with every legislative proposal. Yay for "freedom" and "democracy"!
  • by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:33PM (#65139845)
    People who download Deepseek-R1 propose jail time for Seantor Hawley.
  • Hawley is a clown (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @08:48PM (#65139863)

    Did Hawley use AI to write this? Did anyone bother to read it before clicking send? "tenor processing unit" .. " or replicated to function artificial intelligence" ...

    "On and after the date that is 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the export, reexport, or in-country transfer of artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence technology or intellectual property to or within the People's Republic of China is prohibited."

    In case you were wondering what artificial intelligence technology includes:

    "Any semiconductor, circuit board, operating system, graphics processing unit, central processing unit, tenor processing unit, field-programmable gate array, random access memory, hard drive, solid-state drive, dataflow architecture, or cloud computing service, that is manufactured, designed, developed, supplied, deployed, completed, assembled, restored, converted, or replicated to function artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence;"

    This effectively outlaws exporting computers and all computer related components to China.

    • I banned any tenor processing units in my house long ago.
    • It is sad that I will be unable to export my Tenor Processing Unit. It is like Autotune, but artificially ambitious. It is simple to operate, with only an On/Off switch and a large steampunk control lever with three positions: Caruso, Melchior, and Lanza. I tried to adapt it to Chinese opera leads, but it suffered immediate model collapse.
    • Can stupid be a defense for treason? Hawley is the one who needs to be jailed.

  • Instead of trying to come up with ways to make each other bigger and bigger enemies -- until an inevitable stabilization event like war, why not figure out how to make us friends?

    • by dohzer ( 867770 )

      Next you'll be telling billionaires to stop making money. That's not how it works. The people in power want total power and control, and wealthy people only want more and more.

    • Let me explain my above comment better. There are only two options on China:

      1. Declare war on China immediately.

      OR

      2. Figure out a path to friendship.

      If you believe the Chinese are inevitably our enemy .. then the ONLY option is to push for IMMEDIATE war. Waiting will only increase Chinese capacity to cause extreme damage in a war. If you believe China is our enemy. Sanctions are dumb. Tariffs too, are dumb.

      The other option is forging a path to peace via friendship and fair trade, and increasing mad sanction

      • From a pure game theory perspective, your assertioned option 1 presupposed no possible way to cripple them in peacetime in preparation for war. Ergo, your analysis is faulty.
        • Cripple them in peacetime? Umm, how is that going to work via sanctions? Plus the possibility of being able to do that is remote. You think that's the viable play here?

          • Cripple them in peacetime? Umm, how is that going to work via sanctions?

            The math isn't complicated.
            It's a gamble to see if they can achieve as much without integration with our economic factors as they can with.

            Plus the possibility of being able to do that is remote.

            Might be. Might not be.

            You think that's the viable play here?

            Probably.

            Unless you reject the basic premise of globalism, it follows that an isolated China's growth will be less than it would have otherwise been.

            I'm not arguing for this political position- but the logic is sound enough.

      • There is no "path for friendship" with China. The population of China, if let on their own, may or may not want to be friends with you, but what they want is not an issue. What their power elites want is.

        The power elites in China after the thawing brought by Deng began to become rather diverse, many of them not ideologically pure, so that brought a backlash starting with pooh jinping winning his first "appointment" as the party/country top in 2012.

        He managed to successfully clean up the party, the military

        • China doesn't so much have elites as much as it has Xi. He's gutted the party of anyone competent enough to replace him. Get rid of Xi (through time or poison) and there's a path to friendship.

      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The "Republic of China" was an ally during WW2. They still are allies, but they lost control of most of China and now are only in control of Taiwan.

  • by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @09:25PM (#65139931)

    I know this is an incredibly stupid question considering the conservative court cares nothing for the Constitution beyond what it can do for them. But let's say we're back in normal times. This would never fly past first amendment right?

    • Technology import and export controls has a long tradition in the U.S.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @09:39PM (#65139957)

    Feindsender are not allowed anymore and get you sent to a KZ for downloading from them.

    The US is not very far away to have really bad people like that in power long-term. If the voters get a minimal clue, it can still be avoided, but that is probably not going to happen.

  • Oh really senator (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @09:44PM (#65139973)
    Lets start with illegal kickbacks, contributions, bribes, and move on to insider trading.
  • Politicians should not write these types of laws without lots of input from tech people, lawyers, and economists. The law as written is fuzzy, prohibiting "the importation into the United States of artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence technology or intellectual property developed or produced in the People’s Republic of China" and export of the same. If "intellectual property" is a phrase that is grammatically not dependent on “artificial intelligence or generative arti

  • by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Monday February 03, 2025 @11:51PM (#65140115) Homepage
    One of the main arguments for trying to foil China's ambitions to pursue prosperity is that they have an "authoritarian" government. So, in response, we're gonna put people in prison for 20 years for downloading an app... America! fuck yeah!
  • The land of the free... /s
  • DeepSeek seems to be a clone of ChatGPT:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatG... [reddit.com]

  • Senator Hawley Proposes Jail Time For People Who Download DeepSeek

    ... and so the land of the free gets even more freedumb.

  • by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @03:33AM (#65140307)
    What about the death penalty?
  • jailtime senators (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @07:19AM (#65140563) Homepage

    There should be jailtime for senators even suggesting stupid bills like this. Stop wasting taxpayers money on ridiculous bills. It's time the salary of a senator is cut down a lot so it isn't really interesting anymore for people who don't care about actually doing their job and just want to collect a hefty salary.
    This man belongs in a mental hospital as no sane person would ever suggest something like this. I thought it was a free country, so people should be free to use even chinese developed technologies if they want to.

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