Hyperdimensional
Modest visions of an open-source AI future
r1 should be seen as a reaffirmation of something that has long been obvious: open-source frontier AI is going to be relevant for at least the foreseeable future if not much longer, and it is going to be an important vector in the broader technological and economic competition between the US and China. Open source is, therefore, an important part of American competitiveness and national security. Some people will probably still try to deny this reality, but r1 makes their job even harder.
I prefer to think of the DeepSeek release as an invitation rather than a threat. America needs to think bigger and more boldly about the things our AI systems—closed and open alike—might make possible at home and around the world.
No longer should we pretend that open-source is something that can be willed away through regulation or top-down control. Nor should we indulge the simplistic idea that open source involves “giving away our technology to China.” And no longer should be pretend that a fierce competition with China is something we can “avoid” due to fears of “AI arms race dynamics.”
