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Good Morning,
I was alarmed to read that OpenAI, the closed-source AI monopoly who rose to fame with ChatGPT wants to ban DeepSeek, the open-source model maker that is being adopted at record pace. Incumbents should never have the means to stifle younger and more able competitors. This is against everything meritocracy and free competition stands for, supposedly values America once prided itself upon.
Open-source models are the biggest threat to OpenAI and Anthropic, which are funded by the likes of Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
These two AI startups are the Generative AI Duopoly of the current era. They are also embedded into the NSA, Department of Defense and the Pentagon, on National security grounds. Something they once pledged, not to do.
Instead of competing on a level playing field, BigTech wants to use U.S. anti-China rhetoric and U.S’s push for AI Supremacy to veto Open-source models that might threaten its own global dominance and cash-cows.
In a new policy proposal, OpenAI describes Chinese AI lab DeepSeek as “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from the outfit and similar People’s Republic of China (PRC)-supported operations.
If the only reason you exist is by funding from Microsoft, you didn’t emerge through a meritocracy or by your own merit or talent and since DeepSeek-R1 was announced in late January, 2025, you can tell OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and xAI have been slower to iterate on their models and innovations than the likes of Alibaba Qwen, ByteDance, Tencent and of course DeepSeek.
OpenAI instead of competing, is playing to the Trump Administration’s anti-China (supposedly China hawkish stance) sentiment and MAGA impulses to try to remove a competitor, by force or foul means if necessary. OpenAI that company where most of its leaders have left where there exists an army of lawyers, PR folk and lobbyists:
“OpenAI respectfully submits the enclosed proposals to the Office of Science and Technology Policy as it weighs a new AI Action Plan that will, as Vice President Vance stated recently at the Paris AI Action Summit, maintain American leadership in AI and “make people more productive, more prosperous, and more free.”
By making it seem like OpenAI, with closed-source models that likely harvest user data incredibly well via ChatGPT, are the good guys, they are trying to ensure that America wins, in that “we must win” mentality we often hear from Venture Capitalists like Sam Altman and Eric Schmidt who want to financially profit from anti-Chinese sentiment. Microsoft, their biggest funders, are well known Surveillance Capitalism actors who disregard user privacy and are fairly well-known data harvesting champions.
OpenAI trying to make a legal case on why their open-source rivals like DeepSeek, should be banned feels more than a little hypocritical to me in 2025.
The proposal, a submission for the Trump administration’s “AI Action Plan” initiative, claims that DeepSeek’s models, including its R1 “reasoning” model, are insecure because DeepSeek faces requirements under Chinese law to comply with demands for user data. OpenAI must be alarmed how fast Qwen and DeepSeek are iterating and how fast companies and the Cloud are adopting their models in early 2025.
Closed Source vs. Open-Source
It’s ironic to claim that Deepseek is “state-controlled” as an open-source model that, by definition, is freely available and modifiable by anyone.
Banning the use of “PRC-produced” models in all countries considered “Tier 1” under the Biden administration’s export rules would prevent privacy and “security risks,” OpenAI says, including the “risk of IP theft.” OpenAI who have themselves likely conducted huge copyright theft against millions of people to train their models in the first place.
So is the U.S. simply going to ban all models made in China, to try to stay ahead? Is that even a coherent strategy? Open-source models were always going to break the moats (Google employees had admitted as much) of this manufactured AI duopoly, who are more interested in products and revenue, than doing what is right, for the record.
ChatGPT is indeed famous. But innovation doesn’t wait for first-movers to grow up. It doesn’t wait for monopolists and scheming venture capitalists like Sam Altman, who is about as two-faced and manipulative as they come.
As TechCrunch states as well – DeepSeek’s open models don’t contain mechanisms that would allow the Chinese government to siphon user data; companies including Microsoft, Perplexity, and Amazon host them on their infrastructure. DeepSeek like many open-source models are available on Cloud providers.
The reality is the U.S. will be unable to compete if they conform to their centralized capitalism with characteristics of monopoly winner-takes-all tendencies of rule of law that Silicon Valley has been devolving into for at least the last decade. If Open AI becomes political for MAGA’s own concerns, perhaps Europe or Canada should consider banning OpenAI’s models and ChatGPT.
In the history of technology and especially academics and developers collaborating globally, Open source software (OSS) has played a critical and crucial role in shaping the technology landscape since its early days. OpenAI should not become synonymous with the U.S. state. ChatGPT doesn’t even lead in either coding or writing, the two main and most common uses of Generative AI. GPT-4.5 is not even a frontier model and I am not hopeful for GPT-5’s capabilities any longer either. If anything, I have been more impressed with China’s innovation in the space of late.
DeepSeek-R1 contains 671 billion parameters, DeepSeek revealed in a technical report. DeepSeek’s models are in 2025, what Meta’s Llama models were in the 2023 and 2024. An essential component of how Generative AI is becoming open-weight and more affordable for customers in the Cloud to adopt AI, in all parts of the world and of course especially in China.
DeepSeek is a major threat to OpenAI’s kingdom of U.S. exceptionalism and privilege. But the reality remains, Open weight AI models is what keeps the technology decentralized and more democratized. It’s fairly ironic that China is today, the apparent champions of this approach.
Is OpenAI becoming a MAGA Agent?
If OpenAI becomes too MAGA affiliated, it could harm their brand in both the short and long run. There isn’t a clear link between the Chinese government and DeepSeek, a spin-off from a quantitative hedge fund called High-Flyer. However, the PRC has taken an increased interest in DeepSeek in recent months.
The CCP does co-opt any national champion in technology, especially in AI. But this does not mean it is nefarious or dangerous, especially not to OpenAI’s already dominant lead in B2C ChatGPT based users or revenue growth. That China aligns their corporations and growing startups with national goals and long-term incentives is actually a good long-term strategy for innovation, one that by the way, is going to benefit a lot of countries where the U.S. has retreated from.
Sam Altman having Donald Trump announce his Stargate project was fairly dystopian to behold, and perhaps, a sign of things to come. While Anthropic puts on a better show of being trust and safety orientated, they are too owned by Google and Amazon now to be considered really independent. Anthropic is after all, just a spin-out of OpenAI. In recent months they have both fallen in line with MAGA policies and made some fairly bizarre anti-China and pro export-control statements of the national security variety. In other words, they belong to the financial elite now as new cash cows serving their BigTech masters.
DeepSeek deserves our Praise
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping not because he’s a secret agent of the PLA, but because he had become a hero of Chinese entrepreneurship, against all odds. We need to give DeepSeek and Qwen credit for achieving what they have with less funding, resources and less access to the top global tier of AI talent outside of Chinese educated folk. How DeepSeek has attempted to be radically open-source and transparent in the announcements of their models has been part of their appeal.
When you are a firm called OpenAI, but now appear an enemy to open-weight models, it stands to reason that something is not quite right here. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 but converted to a “capped-profit” structure in 2019, and now seeks to restructure once more into a public benefit corporation. DeepSeek should get more funding and China should contribute to AI innovation freely – it will ultimately benefit everyone as the history of technology shows.
U.S. Coercion at the Geopolitical Trade War Table
Let’s not give in to authoritarianism and use the national defense card at every turn, simply because we might be losing the AI race. All it shows is how weak and dystopian Silicon Valley has become against potential challengers.
Given how Trump’s tariffs are impacting China and even America’s own supposed allies, perhaps we should consider banning BigTech funded AI startups and not simply label anything made in China or thought to be “PRC produced” as malevolent. Perhaps global competition remains a good thing for citizens and serving the best interests of global civilization and AI users. Especially and most of all, those who cannot afford OpenAI’s expensive prices and grifting tendencies.
Does anyone want to live in a world where only the elites have access to the best models? DeepSeek is China’s equivalent of an ah-ha or “ChatGPT” moment, let’s let them have it. Let’s not be that empire that tries to harm others, simply because it’s no longer the only game in town. Perhaps developers and users should use whatever AI tools or models they see fit, at their own risk.
Given his history and behavior, I don’t think Sam Altman has our best interests at heart. When he says:
“OpenAI agrees with the Trump Administration that AI creates prosperity and freedom worth fighting for—especially for younger generations whose future will be shaped by how this Administration approaches AI.”
Nothing in OpenAI’s conduct or prices of their products suggests ChatGPT is a tool for good. Sam Altman knows one thing, power – and he like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates in a previous generation, are willing to do anything to maintain it. Watching top leaders and co-founders leave OpenAI, that much at least was plainly obvious.
This article leans heavily on TechCrunch reporting, and is just my point of view. I’m highly skeptical of OpenAI’s AGI marketing, Sam Altman’s conduct and I am critical of Microsoft’s anti-competitive funding of this team and the damage it does to civilization in the medium-term. These companies will build weapons, and their gamified idealism of younger years is being atrophied before our eyes. In America, it’s par for the course.
Anthropic’s latest funding made their seven co-founders, all Billionaires. Am I supposed to think that OpenAI or Anthropic stand for democratic values? Does aligning with MAGA or the Trump Administration sound like an act of fighting for freedom, or consolidating their first-mover advantage by trying to suppress a potential rival in DeepSeek and the open source movement that is awakening in 2025 out of China? I will never trust the people behind companies such as OpenAI, Palantir, Anduril, Scale AI and others who all serve the same masters. It’s an open secret.
The AGI Deception
The made in America construct of AGI is one of the most toxic narratives and lobbying/marketing terms I’ve ever witnessed in Silicon Valley in all of the history of technology. OpenAI is taking pride in believing it has the capability of building AI that will replace work done today by PhDs and white collar workers and professionals – and that we should pay them exorbitant fees for the privilege. Sam Altman is anything but a good actor.
OpenAI requesting to ban DeepSeek is thus a move full of conflicts of interest of the most nefarious and deceptive of commercial varieties. It’s also not how the U.S. wins AI Supremacy. History is full of examples of what happens when you use mechanisms like tariffs, export controls, bans and persuasion among allies forcing them to act and think like you do. They rarely achieve their intended goals and often do exactly the opposite.
We need to stand together to uphold Open-source and open-weight models and refuse to sign on to choices that would limit their proliferation, no matter where they are from. The world and developers need full access to APIs and AI tools full of choices, following principles of free market capitalism on merit and price, no matter their political or national affiliation.
I fear that President Trump’s AI Action Plan is nearly guaranteed to lead the U.S. astray. Because these are not strategic actors with incentives to think in the long-term that even benefits the United States or their allies, but rather leaders acting on the behavior of short-term incentives to consolidate their political and financial power.
Competition is for losers, but Sam Altman is going to be one of the biggest losers after all is said and done, and the United States will be poorer for it. 1
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