7 ms·

> but with open router you can create a no China provider selector why on earth would you trust no data is sent to China? just because you clicked a toggle?

by nubg 1mo ago

lxgr 1mo ago
By that logic, how can you trust OpenAI and Anthropic not to do the same?
- gruez 1mo ago
  For one, openai and anthropic are the top two AI labs and therefore have some reputation at stake. Openrouter is like aliexpress. Any fly-by night vendor can get listed on there.
  - nozzlegear 1mo ago
    The Chinese providers also have reputations at stake
    - SoftTalker 1mo ago
      Not all reputations are equal.
      - nozzlegear 1mo ago
        Good point, the American labs have an awful reputation, and public sentiment is so low it might as well be negative. Plus they've already broken our trust by scraping and stealing everyone's intellectual property to begin with, so they have a lot of catching up to do in terms of reputation and trust.
        gruez 1mo ago
        >Good point, the American labs have an awful reputation ... Reddit/bluesky users seething at anthropic/openai doesn't matter, because they're not the one making the purchasing decisions for AI. Moreover all the complaints you mentioned applies to chinese AI labs as well, with the extra issue that they're beholden to the CCP. Taking the side of chinese ai labs because they're the competitors of american labs is "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, which is just dumb. It's like those people who think the US is bad, so then go and simp for china/russia.
        nozzlegear 1mo ago
        > Reddit/bluesky users seething at anthropic/openai doesn't matter I don't use Reddit or bluesky bud, you're projecting. > Moreover all the complaints you mentioned applies to chinese AI labs as well, with the extra issue that they're beholden to the CCP. And the American labs are beholden to Trump, Hegseth and the department of war. Furthermore, our companies are consistently pursuing regulatory capture (see Dario's latest tweet) so they can establish themselves as a monopoly or duopoly. They've scraped and stolen our data, and now they're trying to pull up the ladder behind them. I'm not naive enough to think that the CCP has my best interests at heart as an American, but I'm also not naive enough to think that Anthropic or OpenAI do either. As long as China keeps releasing open models, then the enemy of my enemy really is my friend.
        lxgr 1mo ago
        > Taking the side of chinese ai labs because they're the competitors of american labs is "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, Are you sure it has nothing to do with open vs. closed weights? I'd say that changes the perceived power dynamic quite significantly (although of course the labs can change this either way in no time if they so choose).
        preg_match 1mo ago
        Most Chinese models are inherently more secure than Anthropic or OpenAI's offerings. Not because they're Chinese, but because they're open-weight. If you value data security and ensuring you're not sending data off to servers, then Anthropic and OpenAI are off the table. The security they offer is just far too weak; you have to rely on blind trust. If you deploy a self-hosted Chinese model, then you know exactly where the data is going. "but nobody is self-hosting Chinese models!" - yes they are, at scale, in datacenters within the US. Many companies already own and operate datacenters; it's a no-brainer.
  - sunaookami 1mo ago
    Do you really trust the notorious liar Sam Altman?
dghlsakjg 1mo ago
Openrouter is very transparent about where your requests are going. Every single one is logged. You decide the routing if you want. I trust it because there are at least 7 billion on the line. If it came out that they were violating their contract and sending company secrets to China when they promised they won’t, they would lose literal billions for basically no gain, and possible criminal charges. Why on earth would you think they are sending data to China after you click that toggle when they have every reason not to?
- zzgo 1mo ago
  As a QA engineer with over 30 years of identifying software regressions, I would assume that data would eventually get sent to China even if you click that toggle. One ambitious intern or new hire is all it takes, especially in an age of agent-generated code and 1K+ line PRs.
  - RataNova 1mo ago
    With that logic you shouldnt even deploy to the cloud at all. Someone in AWS can also accidentally share an S3 bucket with backups to the whole internet, there are plenty of precedents for that
    - zzgo 1mo ago
      > With that logic you shouldnt even deploy to the cloud at all Given how permissive the architecture of the internet is from TCP/IP on up, I think you could formulate a vigorous argument backing up this assertion.

> but with open router you can create a no China provider selector why on earth would you trust no data is sent to China? just because you clicked a toggle?

by nubg 1mo ago

> but with open router you can create a no China provider selector why on earth would you trust no data is sent to China? just because you clicked a toggle?

lxgr 1mo ago

By that logic, how can you trust OpenAI and Anthropic not to do the same?

gruez 1mo ago
For one, openai and anthropic are the top two AI labs and therefore have some reputation at stake. Openrouter is like aliexpress. Any fly-by night vendor can get listed on there.
- nozzlegear 1mo ago
  The Chinese providers also have reputations at stake
  - SoftTalker 1mo ago
    Not all reputations are equal.
    - nozzlegear 1mo ago
      Good point, the American labs have an awful reputation, and public sentiment is so low it might as well be negative. Plus they've already broken our trust by scraping and stealing everyone's intellectual property to begin with, so they have a lot of catching up to do in terms of reputation and trust.
      - gruez 1mo ago
        >Good point, the American labs have an awful reputation ... Reddit/bluesky users seething at anthropic/openai doesn't matter, because they're not the one making the purchasing decisions for AI. Moreover all the complaints you mentioned applies to chinese AI labs as well, with the extra issue that they're beholden to the CCP. Taking the side of chinese ai labs because they're the competitors of american labs is "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, which is just dumb. It's like those people who think the US is bad, so then go and simp for china/russia.
        nozzlegear 1mo ago
        > Reddit/bluesky users seething at anthropic/openai doesn't matter I don't use Reddit or bluesky bud, you're projecting. > Moreover all the complaints you mentioned applies to chinese AI labs as well, with the extra issue that they're beholden to the CCP. And the American labs are beholden to Trump, Hegseth and the department of war. Furthermore, our companies are consistently pursuing regulatory capture (see Dario's latest tweet) so they can establish themselves as a monopoly or duopoly. They've scraped and stolen our data, and now they're trying to pull up the ladder behind them. I'm not naive enough to think that the CCP has my best interests at heart as an American, but I'm also not naive enough to think that Anthropic or OpenAI do either. As long as China keeps releasing open models, then the enemy of my enemy really is my friend.
        lxgr 1mo ago
        > Taking the side of chinese ai labs because they're the competitors of american labs is "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic, Are you sure it has nothing to do with open vs. closed weights? I'd say that changes the perceived power dynamic quite significantly (although of course the labs can change this either way in no time if they so choose).
        preg_match 1mo ago
        Most Chinese models are inherently more secure than Anthropic or OpenAI's offerings. Not because they're Chinese, but because they're open-weight. If you value data security and ensuring you're not sending data off to servers, then Anthropic and OpenAI are off the table. The security they offer is just far too weak; you have to rely on blind trust. If you deploy a self-hosted Chinese model, then you know exactly where the data is going. "but nobody is self-hosting Chinese models!" - yes they are, at scale, in datacenters within the US. Many companies already own and operate datacenters; it's a no-brainer.
- sunaookami 1mo ago
  Do you really trust the notorious liar Sam Altman?

dghlsakjg 1mo ago

Openrouter is very transparent about where your requests are going. Every single one is logged. You decide the routing if you want. I trust it because there are at least 7 billion on the line. If it came out that they were violating their contract and sending company secrets to China when they promised they won’t, they would lose literal billions for basically no gain, and possible criminal charges. Why on earth would you think they are sending data to China after you click that toggle when they have every reason not to?

zzgo 1mo ago
As a QA engineer with over 30 years of identifying software regressions, I would assume that data would eventually get sent to China even if you click that toggle. One ambitious intern or new hire is all it takes, especially in an age of agent-generated code and 1K+ line PRs.
- RataNova 1mo ago
  With that logic you shouldnt even deploy to the cloud at all. Someone in AWS can also accidentally share an S3 bucket with backups to the whole internet, there are plenty of precedents for that
  - zzgo 1mo ago
    > With that logic you shouldnt even deploy to the cloud at all Given how permissive the architecture of the internet is from TCP/IP on up, I think you could formulate a vigorous argument backing up this assertion.