China Smart, US Dumb: Is There Any Doubt?
August 1, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
I have been identifying some of the “China smart, US dumb” information that I see. I noticed a write up from The Register titled “China Proves That Open Models Are More Effective Than All the GPUs in the World.” My Google-style Red Alert buzzer buzzed and the bubble gum machine lights flashed.
There is was. The “all.” A categorical affirmative. China is doing something that is more than “all the GPUs in the world.” Not only that “open models are more effective” too. I have to hit the off button.
The point of the write up for me is that OpenAI is a loser. I noted this statement:
OpenAI was supposed to make good on its name and release its first open-weights model since GPT-2 this week. Unfortunately, what could have been the US’s first half-decent open model of the year has been held up by a safety review…
But it is not just OpenAI muffing the bunny. The write up points out:
the best open model America has managed so far this year is Meta’s Llama 4, which enjoyed a less than stellar reception and was marred with controversy. Just this week, it was reported that Meta had apparently taken its two-trillion-parameter Behemoth out behind the barn after it failed to live up to expectations.
Do you want to say, “Losers”? Go ahead.
But what outfit is pushing out innovative smart software as open source? Okay, you can shout, “China. The Middle Kingdom. The rightful rulers of the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asia.
That’s the “right” answer if you accept the “all” type of reasoning in the write up.
China has tallied a number of open source wins; specifically, Deepseek, Qwen, M1, Ernie, and the big winner Kimi.
Do you still have doubts about China’s AI prowess? Something is definitely wrong with you, pilgrim.
Several observations:
- The write up is a very good example of the China smart, US dumb messaging which has made its way from the South China Morning Post to YouTube and now to the Register. One has to say, “Good work to the Chinese strategists.”
- The push for open source is interesting. I am not 100 percent convinced that making these models available is intended to benefit non-Middle Kingdom people. I think that the push, like the shift to crypto currency in non traditional finance, is part of an effort to undermine what might be called “America’s hegemony.”
- The obviousness of overt criticism of OpenAI and Meta (Facebook) illustrates a growing confidence in China that Western European information channels can be exploited.
Does this matter? I think it does. Open source software has some issues. These include its use as a vector for malware. Developers often abandon projects, leaving users high and dry with some reaching for their wallet to buy commercial solutions. Open source projects for smart software may have baked in biases and functions that are not easily spotted. Many people are aware of NSO Group’s ability to penetrate communications on a device by device basis. What happens if the phone home ability is baked into some open source software.
Remember that “all.” The logical fallacy illustrates that some additional thinking may be necessary when it comes to embedding and using software from some countries with very big ambitions. What is China proving? Could it be China smart, US dumb?
Stephen E Arnold, August 1, 2025
Can AI Do What Jesus Enrique Rosas Does?
July 8, 2025
Just a dinobaby without smart software. I am sufficiently dull without help from smart software.
I learned about a YouTube video via a buried link in a story in my newsfeed. The video is titled “Analysis of Jeffrey Epstein’s Cell Block Video Released by the FBI.” I know little about Mr. Rosas. He is a body language “expert.” I know zero about this field. He gives away a book about body language, and I assume that he gets inquiries and sells services. He appears to have developed what he calls a Knesix Code. He does not disclose his academic background.
But …
His video analysis of the Epstein surveillance camera data makes clear that Sr. Rosas has an eye for detail. Let me cite two examples:
First, he notes that in some of the footage released by the FBI, a partial image of a video editing program’s interface appears. Not only does it appear, but the image appears in several separate sectors of the FBI-released video. Mr. Rosas raises the possibility that the FBI footage (described as unaltered) was modified.
Here is an example of that video editing “tell” or partial image:
Second, Sr. Rosas spots a time gap in the FBI video. Here’s where the “glitch” appears:
How much is missing from the unedited video file? More than a minute.
Observations:
- I feed the interface image into a couple of smart software systems. None was able to identify the specific program’s interface from the partial image
- Mr. Rosas’ analysis identified two interesting anomalies in the video
- The allegedly unedited video appears to have been edited.
Net net: AI is not able to do what Sr. Rosas did. I do not want to speculate how “no videos” became this one video. I do not want to speculate why an unedited video contains two editing indications. I don’t want to think much about Jeffrey Epstein, the kiddie trafficking, and the individuals associating with him. I will stick with my observation, “AI does not seem to have the ability to do what Sr. Rosas did.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 8, 2025
Teams Today, Cloud Data Leakage Tomorrow Allegations Tomorrow?
June 27, 2025
An opinion essay written by a dinobaby who did not rely on smart software .
The creep of “efficiency” manifests in numerous ways. A simple application becomes increasingly complex. The result, in many cases, is software that loses the user in chrome trim, mud flaps, and stickers for vacation spots. The original vehicle wears a Halloween costume and can be unrecognizable to someone who does not use the software for six months and returns to find a different creature.
What’s the user reaction to this? For regular users, few care too much. For a meta-users — that is those who look at the software from a different perspective; for example, that of a bean counter — the accumulation of changes produces more training costs, more squawks about finding employees who can do the “work,” and creeping cost escalation. The fix? Cheaper or free software. “German Government Moves Closer to Ditching Microsoft: “We’re Done with Teams!” explains:
The long-running battle of Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, to make a complete switch from Microsoft software to open-source alternatives looks close to an end. Many government operatives will permanently wave goodbye to the likes of Teams, Word, Excel, and Outlook in the next three months in a move to ensure independence, sustainability, and security.
The write up includes a statement that resonates with me:
Digitalization Minister Dirk Schroedter has announced that “We’re done with Teams!”
My team has experimented with most video conferencing software. I did some minor consulting to an outfit called DataBeam years and years ago. Our experience with putting a person in front of a screen and doing virtual interaction is not something that we decided to use in the lock down days. Nope. We fiddled with Sparcs and the assorted accoutrements. We tried whatever became available when one of my clients would foot the bill. I was okay with a telephone, but the future was mind-addling video conferences. Go figure.
Our experience with Teams at Arnold Information Technology is that the system balks when we use it on a Mac Mini as a user who does not pay. On a machine with a paid account, the oddities of the interface were more annoying than Zoom’s bizarre approach. I won’t comment about the other services to which we have access, but these too are not the slickest auto polishes on the Auto Zone’s shelves.
Digitalization Minister Dirk Schroedter (Germany) is quoted as saying:
The geopolitical developments of the past few months have strengthened interest in the path that we’ve taken. The war in Ukraine revealed our energy dependencies, and now we see there are also digital dependencies.
Observations are warranted:
- This anti-Microsoft stance is not new, but it has not been linked to thinking in relationship to Russia’s special action.
- Open source software may not be perfect, but it does offer an option. Microsoft “owns” software in the US government, but other countries may be unwilling to allow Microsoft to snap on the shackles of proprietary software.
- Cloud-based information is likely to become an issue with some thistles going forward.
The migration of certain data to data brokers might be waiting in the wings in a restaurant in Brussels. Someone in Germany may want to serve up that idea to other EU member nations.
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2025
The UN Invites Open Source and UN-invites Google
June 3, 2025
The United Nations is tired of Google’s shenanigans. Google partnered with the United Nations to manage their form submissions, but the organization that acts as a forum for peace and dialogue is tired of Alphabet Inc. It’s Foss News explains where the UN is turning to for help: “UN Ditches Google For Taking Form Submissions, Opts For An Open Source Solution Instead.” The UN won’t be using Google for its form submissions anymore. The organization has switched to open source and will use CryptPad for submission forms.
The United Nations is promoting the adoption of open source initiatives while continuing to secure user data, ensure transparency, and encourage collaboration. CryptPad is a privacy-focused, open source online collaboration office suite that encrypts its content, doesn’t log IP addresses, and includes collaborative documents and other tools.
The United Nations is trying to step away from Big Tech:
“So far, the UN seems to be moving in the correct direction with their UN Open Source Principles initiative, ditching the user data hungry Google Form, and opting for a much more secure and privacy-focused CryptPad.
They’ve already secured the endorsement of sixteen organizations, including notable names like The Document Foundation, Open Source Initiative, Eclipse Foundation, ZenDiS, The Linux Foundation, and The GNOME Foundation.
I sincerely hope the UN continues its push away from proprietary Big Tech solutions in favor of more open, privacy-respecting alternatives, integrating more of their workflow with such tools.” “No Google” would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Today it’s not just thinking; it is de-Googling. And the open source angle. Is this a way to say, “US technology companies seem to be a bit of a problem?”
Whitney Grace, June 3, 2025
Microsoft: Did It Really Fork This Fellow?
May 26, 2025
Just the dinobaby operating without Copilot or its ilk.
Forked doesn’t quite communicate the exact level of frustration Philip Laine experienced while working on a Microsoft project. He details the incident in his post, “Getting Forked By Microsoft.” Laine invented a solution for image scalability without a stateful component and needed minimal operation oversight. He dubbed his project Spegel, made it open source, and was contacted by Microsoft.
Microsoft was pleased with Spegel. Laine worked with Microsoft engineers to implement Spegel into its architecture. Everything went well until Microsoft stopped working with him. He figured the moved onto other projects. Microsoft did move on but the engineers developed their own version of Spegel. They have the grace to thank Laine and in a README file. It gets worse:
"While looking into Peerd, my enthusiasm for understanding different approaches in this problem space quickly diminished. I saw function signatures and comments that looked very familiar, as if I had written them myself. Digging deeper I found test cases referencing Spegel and my previous employer, test cases that have been taken directly from my project. References that are still present to this day. The project is a forked version of Spegel, maintained by Microsoft, but under Microsoft’s MIT license.”
Microsoft plagiarized…no…downright stole Spegel’s base coding from Laine. He, however, published Spegel with Microsoft’s MIT licensing. The MIT licensing means:
“Software released under an MIT license allows for forking and modifications, without any requirement to contribute these changes back. I default to using the MIT license as it is simple and permissive.”
It does require this:
“The license does not allow removing the original license and purport that the code was created by someone else. It looks as if large parts of the project were copied directly from Spegel without any mention of the original source.”
Laine wanted to work with Microsoft and have their engineers contribute to his open source project. He’s dedicated his energy, time, and resources to Spegel and continues to do so without much contribution other than GitHub sponsors and the thanks of its users. Laine is considering changing Spegel’s licensing as it’s the only way to throw a stone at Microsoft.
If true, the pulsing AI machine is a forker.
Whitney Grace, May 26, 2025
Yo, Open Source Cheerleaders: Department of Defense News
May 21, 2025
Add this to the many changes we have recently seen in the federal government: We learn from Tech Radar, “Pentagon Looks to Shake Up ‘Outdated’ Software Procurement, Declares War on Open Source.” As much as we love open-source software, we know it poses certain security risks for sensitive systems. With an initiative dubbed the Software Fast-Track (SWFT), DOD CIO Katherine Arrington aims to overhaul the department’s software acquisition, authorization, and testing processes. The new framework is to be published by the end of July. Writer Craig Hale reports:
“In the memo, Arrington explained the SWFT Framework will define ‘clear’ and ‘specific’ cybersecurity and Supple Chain Risk Management (SCRM) requirements, rigorous software security verification processes, secure information sharing mechanisms and Federal Government-led risk determinations to expedite the cybersecurity authorizations for rapid software adoption. She continued to explain that current systems are best seen as ‘outdated,’ noting that acquisition processes don’t enable the agility that departments need. Arrington also noted that the use of open source software ‘presents a significant and ongoing challenge,’ with a lack of visibility into the origins and security of software code particularly troubling. Malware and partner leaks have already exposed vulnerabilities in DOD systems, with software vulnerabilities among the most popular entry points for attackers.”
Excellent point. We note the DOD seems to have several goals for this initiative. One can only hope security will take precedence over rapid adoption and penny-pinching. We are curious to see how the agency will save money while shifting away from free software.
Cynthia Murrell, May 21, 2025
France And Germany Form Open Source Writing Collaboration
April 30, 2025
Open source software and AI algorithms are a match made in heaven. You can’t say the same thing about France and Germany when it comes to history, but the countries can put aside their differences (occasionally) to advance technology. The French and German governments came together to design Docs.
Docs is described as “Collaborative writing, simplified-collaborate and write in real time, without layout constraints.” I don’t know if the term “layout” refers to a writing software’s formatting or if it means limited to the constraints of writing software. It could mean either of things or something is lost in the literal translation. Ich habe keine Ahnung. Je ne c’est pas.
Docs is built on the Django Rest Framework and Nest.js. It also uses BlockNote.js and Yes (they also sponsor those text editors too). Docs can be self-hosted, has a business friendly license, and welcomes anyone to contribute to its growth either monetarily or via code). Here is what Docs offers as a writing partner:
“Docs offers an intuitive writing experience. Its minimalist interface favors content over layout, while offering the essentials: media import, offline mode and keyboard shortcuts for greater efficiency.”
So far that sounds très magnifique and ausgezeichnet! Docs also offers simple real-time collaboration. Users on a document can access the same document, see changes made live, and maintain control of the document for data security. Docs also has universal formats for exportation: OpenDocument, Word, and PDF.
A nifty feature unavailable with most writing software is the ability to organize documents into knowledge bases with subpages. This feature also comes with search and pinning capabilities.
This French and German writing collaboration sounds amazing! Break out the champagne and beer and enjoy some croissants and pretzels. This is one open source tool everyone needs!
Whitney Grace, April 30, 2025
Sam Altman: The Waffling Man
February 17, 2025
Another dinobaby commentary. No smart software required.
Chaos is good. Flexibility is good. AI is good. Sam Altman, whom I reference as “Sam AI-Man” has some explaining to do. OpenAI is a consumer of cash. The Chinese PR push suggests that Deepseek has found a way to do OpenAI-type computing like Shein and Temu do gym clothes.
I noted “Sam Altman Admits OpenAI Was On the Wrong Side of History in Open Source Debate.” The write up does not come out state, “OpenAI was stupid when it embraced proprietary software’s approach” to meeting user needs. To be frank, Sam AI-Man was not particularly clear either.
The write up says that Sam AI-Man said:
“Yes, we are discussing [releasing model weights],” Altman wrote. “I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open source strategy.” He noted that not everyone at OpenAI shares his view and it isn’t the company’s current highest priority. The statement represents a remarkable departure from OpenAI’s increasingly proprietary approach in recent years, which has drawn criticism from some AI researchers and former allies, most notably Elon Musk, who is suing the company for allegedly betraying its original open source mission.
My view is that Sam AI-Man wants to emulate other super techno leaders and get whatever he wants. Not surprisingly, other super techno leaders have their own ideas. I would suggest that the objective of these AI jousts is power, control, and money.
“What about the users?” a faint voice asks. “And the investors?” another bold soul queries.
Who?
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2025
China Smart, US Dumb: LLMs Bad, MoEs Good
November 21, 2024
Okay, an “MoE” is an alternative to LLMs. An “MoE” is a mixture of experts. An LLM is a one-trick pony starting to wheeze.
Google, Apple, Amazon, GitHub, OpenAI, Facebook, and other organizations are at the top of the list when people think about AI innovations. We forget about other countries and universities experimenting with the technology. Tencent is a China-based technology conglomerate located in Shenzhen and it’s the world’s largest video game company with equity investments are considered. Tencent is also the developer of Hunyuan-Large, the world’s largest MoE.
According to Tencent, LLMs (large language models) are things of the past. LLMs served their purpose to advance AI technology, but Tencent realized that it was necessary to optimize resource consumption while simultaneously maintaining high performance. That’s when the company turned to the next evolution of LLMs or MoE, mixture of experts models.
Cornell University’s open-access science archive posted this paper on the MoE: “Hunyuan-Large: An Open-Source MoE Model With 52 Billion Activated Parameters By Tencent” and the abstract explains it is a doozy of a model:
In this paper, we introduce Hunyuan-Large, which is currently the largest open-source Transformer-based mixture of experts model, with a total of 389 billion parameters and 52 billion activation parameters, capable of handling up to 256K tokens. We conduct a thorough evaluation of Hunyuan-Large’s superior performance across various benchmarks including language understanding and generation, logical reasoning, mathematical problem-solving, coding, long-context, and aggregated tasks, where it outperforms LLama3.1-70B and exhibits comparable performance when compared to the significantly larger LLama3.1-405B model. Key practice of Hunyuan-Large include large-scale synthetic data that is orders larger than in previous literature, a mixed expert routing strategy, a key-value cache compression technique, and an expert-specific learning rate strategy. Additionally, we also investigate the scaling laws and learning rate schedule of mixture of experts models, providing valuable insights and guidance for future model development and optimization. The code and checkpoints of Hunyuan-Large are released to facilitate future innovations and applications.”
Tencent has released Hunyuan-Large as an open source project, so other AI developers can use the technology! The well-known companies will definitely be experimenting with Hunyuan-Large. Is there an ulterior motive? Sure. Money, prestige, and power are at stake in the AI global game.
Whitney Grace, November 21, 2024
Meta and China: Yeah, Unauthorized Use of Llama. Meh
November 8, 2024
This post is the work of a dinobaby. If there is art, accept the reality of our using smart art generators. We view it as a form of amusement.
That open source smart software, you remember, makes everything computer- and information-centric so much better. One open source champion laboring as a marketer told me, “Open source means no more contractual handcuffs, the ability to make changes without a hassle, and evidence of the community.
An AI-powered robot enters a meeting. One savvy executive asks in Chinese, “How are you? Are you here to kill the enemy?” Another executive, seated closer to the gas emitted from a cannister marked with hazardous materials warnings gasps, “I can’t breathe!” Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
How did those assertions work for China? If I can believe the “trusted” outputs of the “real” news outfit Reuters, just super cool. “Exclusive: Chinese Researchers Develop AI Model for Military Use on Back of Meta’s Llama”, those engaging folk of the Middle Kingdom:
… have used Meta’s publicly available Llama model to develop an AI tool for potential military applications, according to three academic papers and analysts.
Now that’s community!
The write up wobbles through some words about the alleged Chinese efforts and adds:
Meta has embraced the open release of many of its AI models, including Llama. It imposes restrictions on their use, including a requirement that services with more than 700 million users seek a license from the company. Its terms also prohibit use of the models for “military, warfare, nuclear industries or applications, espionage” and other activities subject to U.S. defense export controls, as well as for the development of weapons and content intended to “incite and promote violence”. However, because Meta’s models are public, the company has limited ways of enforcing those provisions.
In the spirit of such comments as “Senator, thank you for that question,” a Meta (aka Facebook), wizard allegedly said:
“That’s a drop in the ocean compared to most of these models (that) are trained with trillions of tokens so … it really makes me question what do they actually achieve here in terms of different capabilities,” said Joelle Pineau, a vice president of AI Research at Meta and a professor of computer science at McGill University in Canada.
My interpretation of the insight? Hey, that’s okay.
As readers of this blog know, I am not too keen on making certain information public. Unlike some outfits’ essays, Beyond Search tries to address topics without providing information of a sensitive nature. For example, search and retrieval is a hard problem. Big whoop.
But posting what I would term sensitive information as usable software for anyone to download and use strikes me as something which must be considered in a larger context; for example, a bad actor downloading an allegedly harmless penetration testing utility of the Metasploit-ilk. Could a bad actor use these types of software to compromise a commercial or government system? The answer is, “Duh, absolutely.”
Meta’s founder of the super helpful Facebook wants to bring people together. Community. Kumbaya. Sharing.
That has been the lubricant for amassing power, fame, and money… Oh, also a big gold necklace similar to the one’s I saw labeled “Pharaoh jewelry.”
Observations:
- Meta (Facebook) does open source for one reason: To blunt initiatives from its perceived competitors and to position itself to make money.
- Users of Meta’s properties are only data inputters and action points; that is, they are instrumentals.
- Bad actors love that open source software. They download it. They study it. They repurpose it to help the bad actors achieve their goals.
Did Meta include a kill switch in its open source software? Oh, sure. Meta is far-sighted, concerned with misuse of its innovations, and super duper worried about what an adversary of the US might do with that technology. On the bright side, if negotiations are required, the head of Meta (Facebook) allegedly speaks Chinese. Is that a benefit? He could talk with the weaponized robot dispensing biological warfare agents.
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2024
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