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The US Used to Demand the Best Tech. Now We Ban It
- lokar 3mo agoThe WTO was a mistake. We should return to a GATT style trade policy where free trade is allowed (mostly) between open democratic nations with aligned security interests and goals.
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- rasengan 3mo agoIt’s been like this for a while. Take a technology, call it a weapon and control it. Same playbook.
- Chu4eeno 3mo ago[flagged]
- verdverm 3mo agoSoftware would be equated to nukes if companies and people put more time and energy into the security aspects. They cut costs for a long time by not spending on certain aspects. The does not make AI a nuclear bomb equivalent in my mind. Banning the best models makes that harder to rectify. State level hackers will have access to this technology regardless. Unlike nukes, AI is being used in the cyber warfare realm daily, as both an offensive and defensive tool.
- OutOfHere 3mo agoTo play devil's advocate, there is some logic to banning Chinese cars, which is that their firmware risks sending telemetry to China, also disabling/malfunctioning the car if China were to have a military engagement with the US. I suggest a middle road which is that the entire telemetry surface and firmware updates must be domestically managed, with no room for a closed-source foreign entity to manipulate it. An EV really shouldn't be needing to send telemetry at all. It's not a self-driving car. It would be better if the user could reliably and permanently disable it even when one's phone is connected. The vehicle would also have to be tested to ensure that no covert or p2p radio signals can be sent to it that can signal it to shutdown or malfunction. This is very difficult to assert. There would have to exist domestic personnel who take responsibility for it. Frankly though, Israel scares me more than China, as Israel is known to actually add remotely detonated explosives to exported consumer products.
- Avicebron 3mo ago> I suggest a middle road which is that the entire telemetry surface and firmware updates must be domestically managed, with no room for a closed-source foreign entity to manipulate it. Seems fair? What about manufacturing as well, I'm sure the US can hold these Chinese car design and manufacturing techniques with the same copyright and IP protection that China gives the US's stuff.
- cute_boi 3mo agoThen make a regulation that every firmware that runs on car needs to be open sourced. Banning isn't a good solution, we should create healthy competition.
- gonzalohm 3mo agoAt this point, for me it's equally scary that the US government can do that. If I can't control the firmware then I don't really care for which government my car is spying for. It's all bad
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoIf I was American, I'd be more worried about the American government & corporations spying on me because they're the one with the power over me. If I was Chinese, I'd be more worried about the Chinese government spying on me.
- OutOfHere 3mo agoThat's completely true, but it's not that simple, because technically we need to worry about both, one as an individual, and the other as a nation.
- cyberax 3mo agoI'm sure China is going to be yearning for those sweet traffic pattern data during a war. They'll know which Walmarts they need to bomb first. It's not like there are satellites that can get high-res pictures of most of the US every few hours. Or millions of phones running all kinds of software. Even the US-made cars have dozens of computers that run very crude C-based code, full of bugs and overflows. Security was never a priority for this code. There are so many routes of ingress that it's not even funny.
- nxm 3mo agoUmm not when the adversary is using heavy government subsidies to undercut prices and essentially take over the industry. Look at what’s happening to the European car industry, with more job losses planned by VW just this week
- _aavaa_ 3mo agoThis is a tired argument. When China does it it’s subsidies, when other countries do it it’s called industrial policy.
- verdverm 3mo agoThe irony is that China is actually good at effectively using this and getting more out of reach unit of money put in. Perhaps that is why we feel the need to label them differently, though I would also venture it is more a cultural thing. Americans tend to view subsidies as handouts and industrial policy in the Puritan values lens.
- bashtoni 3mo agoThis argument doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. - The Polestar vehicles most recently banned are made in Charleston SC - Fossil fuel industries in the US receive huge subsidies - Non-Chinese brands (Hyundai/ Kia) produce models with similar pricing
- gonzalohm 3mo agoIsn't that the market strategy of silicon valley companies? Sell at a loss, capture the whole market and then inflate prices
- piva00 3mo agoIt's always been the strategy for VC-funded companies: undercut pricing for as long as possible to achieve market dominance, slowly turn the price knob up to become profitable. Always funny to read the tirades against subsidies here on HN, sometimes even the same users praising how much more capital exist in SV/USA for risky ventures (compared to the EU and other markets) will also complain about how China is undercutting competition with subsidies, without ever batting an eye to the fact the exuberant privilege the USA holds in capital markets is exactly what makes it possible for private investors to subsidise loss-making ventures for years to decades in the USA until the company becomes profitable.
- JimsonYang 3mo ago>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ... If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs. There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to 1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week 2) create a brutal lottery to get a license plate to legally drive a gas car 3) provide a bunch of subsidies The US has only done option 3. Out govt system literally doesnt have the political will to do these brutal but effective policy changes
- JimsonYang 3mo ago*after further research it seems option 1 is really limited to tier 1 and tier 2 cities(1/3) of the population
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoNew car sales in Europe in 2026 are approaching 50% EV with essentially none of the above. Europe has had generous EV subsidies in the past, but in 2026 those are mostly (but not completely) gone.
- yobbo 3mo ago4) add taxes to effectively double price of gasoline
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoThe price of electricity in Europe is also approximately double that of the US.
- nutjob2 3mo agoThis is not true, it varies widely between countries, just as it varies between states in the US.
- wewewedxfgdf 3mo agoOpening the way for foreign competition.
- codekansas 3mo agoI've been thinking for a while that some part of the ebullience towards AI among the American decision-maker class is that it is a good way to stick our heads in the sand and pretend like super-intelligent AI will make up for not being able to build competitive cars and drones. It has the feeling of an easy-to-digest explanation but I'm worried that it's probably wrong.
- malshe 3mo ago> China increasingly resembles the competitive capitalist system Americans were taught to admire, while the US appears to embrace the controlled “kickback” economy we were told to fear. Spot on
- delta_p_delta_x 3mo agoI don't understand the surprise in this article. This particular story is absolutely nothing new—the Germans and Japanese did it first to the US car market, which is inefficient, stuck in a bygone era, and propped up by government protectionism. Nearly all* American cars have been backwards in all metrics since about the 1970s. In general, if you wanted... Reliability: Japanese. Value: Korean, French, Japanese. Performance: German, Italian, maybe every now and then British. Luxury: German, Italian, British, and depending on marque, Japanese. And today, Chinese marques are eating everyone's lunch on every metric in the EV sector because they have seen how everyone else builds cars, lorries, and buses for a while, learnt how to do it themselves, got rid of the ICE, popped a battery in them, and have been massively undercutting the market for a while now. * I should qualify this properly to pre-emptively stave off the ooh-rah crowd: every now and then there has been a decent A-to-B car out of the US, like the Fiesta. Additionally there are models sold purely in Europe like the Ford Mondeo.
- matheusmoreira 3mo agoUS only loves free market if they're the winners.
- thesmtsolver2 3mo agoSo does China. E.g., China goes beyond protectionism and even threatens other countries from doing their own strategy. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/china-wto-complain-against-india-ev-manufacturing-scheme-china-wants-india-to-stop-copying-its-playbook/articleshow/124598355.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/chi... https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/chinas-use-unofficial-trade-barriers-us-china-trade-war https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/chinas-use-unoff... > The authors conclude that non-tariff barriers were a primary instrument used by China in the U.S.-China trade war, with implications for China’s trade conflicts with other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma... So does the EU https://ahdb.org.uk/europe-market-access-and-barriers-to-trade https://ahdb.org.uk/europe-market-access-and-barriers-to-tra... Interestingly, champions of free trade come out only when the US puts in any place the tiniest of restrictions.
- rgbrenner 3mo agoUS bans are based on the incorrect idea that we have control over AI. But the ban only reduces the most advanced model available from US companies. Models from other countries continue development. It's as if the US decided to hit pause on competing on AI and we're just going to let someone else win it. The US could be using these models to fix bugs and defend out systems.. but instead, we're all waiting for open source models to exceed the best unbanned model available in the US(0), and then we can all watch while attackers -- who can use any available open source model, including banned models -- to attack every US company on the internet. US bans are a choice: a choice to lose to China; a choice to leave US companies defenseless; a choice to reduce competitiveness of the US in software. Every time a US person or company watches someone use models they are prohibited from using to achieve something US models can't, they create opposition to this ban. I can't imagine this is a sustainable policy. 0. Currently open source models are included in consideration for the "best model in the US" -- but if they're willing to ban the best from Anthropic/OpenAI, I wouldn't necessarily assume that all open source models will always be available within the US.
- vjvjvjvjghv 3mo ago[dead]
- jatora 3mo agoI keep seeing this take but it doesn't seem to account for the fact that labs are still researching and iterating, even if they aren't releasing. And your point on "Every time a US person or company watches someone use models they are prohibited from using to achieve something US models can't" makes no sense at all. What SOTA models are others able to use that US companies are not? Zero.
- WarmWash 3mo agoThe public will get ~5.5 level models. Private industry will essentially get ITAR access to better models, and other countries will get 5.5 with maybe some select partners getting access. Its totally sensible that the US will keep strong AI to itself to boost its own industry. (ITAR is a very low bar, but you need to be a citizen and your employer must fill out some forms.)
- malshe 3mo agoI've said this before and I will say it again. I don't see any problem in allowing Chinese cars in the US if China manufactures them here under a 49:51 joint venture with an American company. Also, I'm not sure how long CCP will keep on bankrolling their car companies. They are now competing with each other pushing the profits lower. Over the last year BYD stock is down 40%. Take a look at their auto manufacturers index. It peaked in November 2021 losing about 47% since then (https://www.solactive.com/index/DE000SLA0CA9/ https://www.solactive.com/index/DE000SLA0CA9/)
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoThe administration disagrees with you, having just banned the made in South Carolina PoleStar vehicles
- malshe 3mo agoIt's unfortunate indeed.
- socalgal2 3mo agoI want the world to be a "I trust you" place. But the world, unfortunately, has changed with everything being connected online. If the USA government showed up at Apple and Google with guns and said "Shut down all the iOS and Android devices in France, Germany, and Japan or else", Apple and Google, AFAICT, can do that today. They could brick every iOS device and nearly every Android device. I'm actually a little surprised that more countries haven't noticed. Similary, cars are going in the same direction. A few companies can brick every connected car they make, by region, if they want / are forced to. I don't have a solution. I'd buy a BYD if I could as my next car and just cross my fingers it never came to that.
- Animats 3mo agoCars and solar panels get hit the hardest with tariffs and restrictions. Solar panels: [1] Cars: [2] More devices are being hit by US digital sovereignty rules. Most US talk about this revolves around the EU not allowing processing of data about EU citizens outside the EU. It's now a big issue for US customers, too. The US is applying it to many classes of devices. For cars, there's the “Connected Vehicles Rule”.[3] Cars can't phone home to China or some other countries. New models of DJI drones are not allowed to be imported into the US, as mentioned in the article.[4] WiFi-equipped routers have even tighter restrictions.[5] Will this be extended to phones? "Smart" TVs? That's going to be interesting. [1] https://www.peacocktariffconsulting.com/solar-panel-imports/ https://www.peacocktariffconsulting.com/solar-panel-imports/ [2] https://motorwatt.com/ev-blog/howtos/importing-a-chinese-electric-car-to-the-usa https://motorwatt.com/ev-blog/howtos/importing-a-chinese-ele... [3] https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/us-bis-final-rule-prohibits-imports-sales-of-connected-vehicles-and-systems-with-china-or-russia https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/us-bis-final-ru... [4] https://uavcoach.com/dji-ban/ https://uavcoach.com/dji-ban/ [5] https://www.fcc.gov/faqs-recent-updates-fcc-covered-list-regarding-routers-produced-foreign-countries https://www.fcc.gov/faqs-recent-updates-fcc-covered-list-reg...
- stasomatic 3mo agoIsn't this just a game? Play/obey/pretend and we will pretend back or GTFO?
- actionfromafar 3mo agoStill the best place for Clean, Beautiful, Coal. Can't argue with that.
- pickleRick243 3mo agoJournalists used to decry the use of LLMs. Now they use it freely to write their own articles.
- pickleRick243 3mo agoI actually find it funny the downvoters can't tell this was definitely LLM-assisted writing. I'll admit it's more subtle than usual and the writer put some real work in (it wasn't just a one-shot prompt to "write tech article"). I don't even mind LLM-assisted writing if it has real content (like this article). It is a bit hypocritical though given the typical anti-AI tone. Some sample "LLMisms", although the "AI-ness" is really at a more abstract stylistic level (eventually strong enough LLMs will eliminate all simple "LLMisms" so that only the more abstract identifiers will remain) "a potent visual reminder of the imbalance shaping the modern EV economy." "Xiaomi did not simply impress him. It appeared to unsettle him." "Simultaneously, people like me have a “Neo plugged into the Matrix like a battery” sense that they and their credit cards are exactly where US industry icons, notably Elon Musk, prefer them to be." "It’s a strange inversion: China increasingly resembles the competitive capitalist system Americans were taught to admire, while the US appears to embrace the controlled “kickback” economy we were told to fear. "
- jdkee 3mo agoThe U.S. needs the domestic automotive industry to remain viable as vehicle manufacturing is a dual-use technology.
- TeaVMFan 3mo agoNice shout-out to Aptera in the middle of this article. Aptera has built a working, production-intent solar EV. Recent tests showed it charging up to 46 miles per day from the sun alone. Reservation referral link with discount: https://frequal.com/aptera/reserve.html https://frequal.com/aptera/reserve.html
- monksy 3mo agoHow did the Xiaomi SU7 get imported when it's not street or registration legal? How can I try this out? Also: This is a tenant of fascism. They're restricting imports to protect their own members.
- greenmilk 2mo agoWe have an entire generation of technologists convinced that you need a monopoly for a business to be viable, so every tech company is either trying to subsidize its way into a monopoly or running a deadweight loss. Unsurprisingly, the resulting economy in aggregate is non-competitive, as it relies entirely on supply chains from competitive marketplaces.