Which side would you pick?

One who wants to put you in chains from the start or one that demands nothing and shares?

Sources:

The actual choice

So called "Free West" actually not free? Neither free nor working for the world anymore.
Or rather one sure-always-has-been empire wants to play at being a world hegemony again?

Ok, you have one – not only does it have demands, but everything is proprietary only.
It may have been different if the choice was between choosing the open American solutions or open Chinese solutions.
Like a choice of preference over who you stand with ideologically. The result is the same. You still would have the same benefits of having control over your own infrastructure and your own data and privacy. And yet…
But it is not even that!

You have to pick between proprietary solutions which have their own demands, in addition to what those Americans demand from you to not use anything else.
Versus just using open, without even having to say anything or do anything about it.
Open solutions by default do not demand any loyalty, because they are open. They do not come with terms and conditions and long checklists of what you are allowed to do.

Sure, blah blah blah, you can say that – it is open software, but a hidden hook on infrastructure like which GPUs and what data center you use.
But think again. With proprietary you don’t have any choice at all over which hardware and which kind of medium you use, which kind of chips from whose manufacturer.

With Open you always have the room to adapt. Okay, assume one party shares those big fancy models, but they work only on their specific GPUs, or rather they are optimized so much, that it’s only economically feasible to run them if you are running on their specific hardware.
But it is software. Software is malleable, changeable, it is not set in stone.
Being open, you can say fuck them. We will adapt and port to use on whatever hardware we want.

At most they can trick you into soft vendor locking just by using the path of least resistance. Then it’s just cheaper to buy their hardware alongside than to spend any R&D at all. Most likely the hardware also would be cheaper than proprietary.

And yet consider: the cost of software development becomes cheaper and easier every day we go into the future. Whatever you think today is unfeasible – adapting any kind of software to any kind of hardware – tomorrow it is done with just a single prompt and 10 minutes.

The European lesson

You don’t need to go far. Think of the Europeans, who are now very much stuck with US-based services. They use it for everything, they use it to rely on their tech sector and all that. Have little of their own.

And now they think, what would happen if they are getting kicked out?
Especially when they started to attack the very hand that feeds them.

Here, listen to their experience. They’ve been stuck on the American tech industry for like 20 years already, seeing all around how their own stuff slowly dies out, getting acquired and all that, and now they have none of the replacement that depend on Americans fully.

That would have been different if they had depended on American solutions that are open in nature – if they had been using the free software and buying only the hardware or infrastructure.
That is easy to switch. You own the software, you own your data.
Switch is easy – when you already own the software stack and its something you can back up and leave.
They can buy or get hardware quick to host it all – when emergency comes.

But no, they’ve been accepting the deal, thinking that it is good and cost justifies all and blah, doing the same deal of vendor lock that nobody forced them into, actually.

They had no competition, so nobody tried to force them with coercion.
But now the Americans have competition and they are afraid shitless of that. This is why they try to force lock you into their bad deal, because they see no other way. They see clearly that they are getting outmaneuvered. They see how they overinvested in their own stuff and now have to use force to force everyone to use their products only.

Oh, nothing new. They’ve been doing that with their treasuries and their debt, and their use of the dollar as a weapon, for how long now?

Chains, strings, and a tantrum

Also, you think it is just for sharing like minerals and all that? No! Be sure it comes with other strings attached.
what you can develop, how, and what can you use, and how you cannot use, and where it’s hosted, and who possesses the data, or blah blah blah.
Then, if you choose the oppressor side now, not only would you suffer from the policies of those companies, but also with an inability to develop your own.
At best you get to be their pet – allowed to develop under them, but capped. Get ahead any time soon and they shut you down, same as they shut down competitors now.
Due to initiatives of some of their top companies – current policy is that only them are to be allowed to develop anything.

Think of the alliances made in the past, like NATO. It’s just collective alliance to protect each other. It does demand you to contribute, but it does not prohibit you from participating in other alliances. It does not prohibit you from trading with whoever you like or don’t like. They do not demand you to sever ties with somebody or do something like what the Americans are currently proposing.

This time, they just can’t resist.
"just a hegemonic tantrum when someone won’t pick a master"

WTF, they are all under gov thumb! Why should we choose X/Y?

Okay, you could say that other companies are also under their control and all happens only ever because some pricks in Washington or Beijing tells them how, whatever.

But, if it’s open – you may not care, you own it right the moment of download (usually, unless fucky license).
You can stop caring (for a time).
Because when it’s open, they no longer control who can access it, because everyone can now, while proprietary companies will dictate and establish whatever rules the government demands of them.
If anything, openness is a protection against continuous gov influence. Yes, they can interfere for future releases but that means you can shift and switch while using what you already have, without catastrophic denial of service.

So, you have a choice. One comes with strings attached, which can later throw you away if you don’t behave how they like you to behave, versus another that does not require you to sign anything at all, so far does not demand you follow anything – just use open stuff and be happy and prosper.
If you think you could have any security and stability with somebody who frequently launches trade wars, who wants to bind you with the export controls, who wants to control the whole world economy with different means, think about whether you really want to align yourself with them.
Who already frequently threatens you with all those sanctions list and all that and wanted to decide who uses their currency, who is allowed to trade to them and all that.

Today they try to sanction their so-called enemy. Tomorrow they kick you out of this alliance and sanction you.
They already showed they will attack with sanctions anyone they do not like, and their companies follow the sanction regime and cut off whoever they are told to. Why do you think that would change for you?

You think this alliance is permanent? Huh. Until your politicians disagree.

Would you prefer an alliance from which you can walk away and keep what you have already?

Who crippled the world semiconductor economy by making a trade war against competition? Who tried to kill the competition at all? Who is responsible for everything in tech being more expensive now? Oh, just the same monopolists who wanted to keep their monopoly.

Who is approaching you with binding agreements when there is an open alternative?
I’m not saying that the other party would be all nice and good and would not eventually follow the same path of forcing you to do something.
I’m saying that using the open options is always better, regardless of where they come from. But currently one option forces you to forego anything open and non-restrictive, while the other option is your current best deal.
Well, one offers a harder control over your economy while the other has the same control but indirectly – you still benefit from the one where you inherit the capacity to create your own stuff. Proprietary does not allow you such capacity. With open you can always continue to develop your own when your access is being cut off. And also collect expertise in the meanwhile, because of course you would meet and talk about everything.

You could say, oh, blah, blah, blah, you are just a Chinese lover and you just… …praise them and all that.
But no, I’m asking you to seek to go past the words and look at the actions.

We don’t even know what they are actually proposing, we don’t know the details. We know nothing of those actual conditions and terms of benefits. But you can go from what we have now already.
One party has already proven themselves to have the companies with the most oppressive policies, and another just openly shares with the whole world.

One has already proven themselves behaving shitty, another proved themselves going a completely different route, even without any agreements. See it as a precondition of what would be expected.

Think how you don’t coerce somebody into something without showing them the benefits. And was anyone showing you the benefits? If anything, they don’t show you the benefits, they threaten to cut you off.
See, what is the deal? One deal is you are with us or we cut you away.
Another is, well, we keep everything open, you can already have it, so why don’t you join us and help to develop it together.

Who should actually win?

Ok cool, you may have chosen a side. What if you think – who you should actually help?
Those Americans are crying for "need to win the race" (which is their invention anyway), but if we actually fall into their bullshit for a moment, who do you actually want to win the race? (What winning even is, did anyone even define?!)
What would you get if one or the other wins?

If China wins, then everyone on Earth would have the AGI open, accessible, whenever you are, without terms and conditions, just download and run, and run for your own purposes however you want.
If Americans win, you would have all of this wealth and knowledge concentrated in the hands of a few companies, therefore, in the hands of a government who would take control of those companies, and you would get limited and restricted access to it with terms and conditions, with spying, with surveillance, and all that. And they would decide how everything is.

Well, I start with "if trends continue". Not wishful thinking that one side is all evil and the other all fluffy kittens.

How likely is it that American companies suddenly start getting open? Very unlikely, because they are ideologically against that from day one. They are against being open, they want to keep it private, so nobody except them has it. They are always hell-bent on keeping control over everything, and that only they are wise enough to have it all.
The only way it will be the opposite is if they are forced externally. And that is also potentially unlikely to happen.

But Chinese companies were open from day one. Nobody forced them to get open. Yes, ones could be supported but not a requirement. There are both closed and open ones coexisting at the same time. In equal amounts or better.
They are doing that voluntarily for the benefit of us all. Just listen to their leaders.

You ask why they do it? Partly to get a place in the world – and you want that too. And partly to grow the countries willing to trade – Middle East, South, LatAm. More econ is better for all, it is win-win for everyone. It is only the so-called West playing zero-sum, where a win counts only if they stay on top.

Will they stay open forever? There is no definite answer whether the CCP will eventually force them to go private.

And here is the asymmetry. The Americans can afford to close up and still do science. China cannot. They are already isolated enough – if they close, their scientists lose colleagues around the world, those connections break, they cannot exist like that. Even if the CCP goes batshit crazy tomorrow and locks everything up, their own scientists will scream and push back, because it kills their own growth. Contrary to what people think, that power is not absolute when it moves against its own people getting stronger. While in America the winds shift fast and hard with each administration – one more extreme crew with imperial dreams and the whole deal flips overnight. That is where rapid closure is the real danger.

In that case – you still enjoyed a lot before, already have the previous versions and can carry on with your own devs.
If you empower everyone and somebody gets ahead and keeps sharing, because that is the normal way of doing science and tech, then everyone gets empowered back – even the one who seeded it in the first place.

So far, the trajectory is very clear: the closed ones are more likely to continue being closed, and will resist any attempts of public pressure, and there is just no power that would force them to start sharing.
while the other one just needs no interference whatsoever, which is more likely to happen seeing how it grants them both investment, fame, influence and all that and love from all of us.

Ok, even if you don’t believe all their bullshit (you shouldn’t anyway), think of the balance of power. Better support the weaker actor now so you don’t end up with another monopoly and hope they are merciful.
The world has already changed enough that a totalitarian state is considered our provider of market freedom and diversity – who says your alliances will not change in the future?

So, who do you really want to win the race?

upd 24.09 – Checked whether the claims still true after a month.
WAICO (China) has no exclusivity clause found. Framed as formal multilateralism, broad participation, development agenda "AI for good and for all", bridging AI divide, supporting Global South. Membership grew 29 to 38. No source reports a Chinese letter demanding members quit Pax Silica or ban a stack. Sources: MFA Chair statement [1], FMPRC Action Plan [2], ThinkChina analysis [3], Daily Sabah op-ed [4].
[1] https://www.mfa.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/zyxw/202607/t20260717_11984715.html
[2] https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/zyxw/202507/t20250729_11679232.html
[3] https://www.thinkchina.sg/politics/new-ai-blocs-are-chinas-waico-and-americas-pax-silica-splitting-tech-world
[4] https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/waico-confronts-pax-silica-why-ai-states-wont-choose-sides