> Security will be a wedge to restrict the sophistication of open-weight and local LLMs, just as it's been used to demonize and restrict cypherpunk technologies

Unlikely in America or China. This is not a game either can singularly control, and locking down the R&D means conceding momentum to the party that doesn't. Which means use restrictions will be contained to countries satisfied with playing second fiddle.

Instead, I suspect we'll see momentum towards running software on publisher-controlled servers so the source code can be secured through obscurity. It isn't perfect. But it might be good enough to get us through this transition.

If America just banned all chinese models that would wipe out most of the open weights landscape in AI, especially anything close to the frontier. I could easily see that happening if a Mythos tier model comes out of a Chinese lab in early 2027. It doesn't meaningfully change the research competition between OAI/Anthropic/Google/SpaceX but it does pad all of their pockets by removing cheap competition and it gives the government far greater control over AI usage de facto.

> I could easily see that happening if a Mythos tier model comes out of a Chinese lab in early 2027

I don't. I'm not saying American politics isn't capable of doing it. But I don't see us being stupid enough to try locking ourselves out of a technology that everyone else has access to.

But we wouldn’t be. I’m assuming that the US labs retain several months’ lead for at least the next couple of years.

Did you not see the foreign drone parts bans?

How would it be possible to ban Chinese LLMs?

Place the chinese labs on the entities list. That stops any legitimate company using them and probably makes HF take them down. Sure there will be torrents but the laws for doing business with a sanctioned entity bite much harder than the laws around copyright infringement.

> Place the chinese labs on the entities list

Ironically, this–a nascent industry and budding industrial cluster–is the textbook case for deploying tariffs. America tariffs American use of Chinese models and pays that back as a tax credit to American developers.

As long as it is within the country, restriction works. How do you restrict the capability from a foreign entity, especially a hostile one?

netsplit, I guess. decide that the risk of an open network is too great and simply block all routing out of the country through the ISPs and consider the political power that goes along with a global satellite constellation under rule of a single, government-aligned corporation.

"simply block all routing out of the country" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. For government networks, sure. For civilian networks? It's a bit like stopping pirates from ripping video; how do you deal with an attacker that ultimately can gain some form of access? Even in North Korea external media can be smuggled in.

That works for very oppressive countries. However, more freedom-minded countries are not going to law for that.

Didnt work out so well with the cypherpunk technology so there is hope

If they tried to lock down local models more people would use them. They would also have to take down a few us companies in the process who would go down fighting for certain.