Almost certainly intentional, given that none of their Dall-e models nor their Sora models have a yellow tint like this. My guess is that it functions as a watermark equivalent or something.

This encapsulates my views pretty perfectly. Consumer AI (whether it’s LLMs, diffusion models, audio models etc) has been here for a while now, and is used by tens, if not hundreds of millions of people daily. Certainly, you could argue it’s overvalued or overhyped, but just as certainly it’s not valueless. And the open models coming out from China show there is a way to put control of AI in the people’s hands.

To just cede the entire field of consumer AI to liberal or right-wing groups would be a terrible strategic error, especially as Musk and co have gleefully weaponised AI to for their political purposes. At the very least, we must figure out how to counter this, and we cannot do so by shunning the technology entirely.

Clearly, the best way to support tech long term is to improve educational standards, provide equal opportunities to students all across the country, foster scientific curiosity, expand sustainable energy infrastructure, and invest in the pure sciences. So that’s what you’re going to do, right?

…right?

I’ve read the report and the data is pretty interesting, the US and Europe have actually increased carbon emissions this year, but it was offset by decreases mostly in China and India. India’s reduction is considered an outlier because of an unusually cool summer, but China may have already crossed peak fossil energy.

Here’s the report if you’d like to read it: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/q3-global-power-report-no-fossil-fuel-growth-expected-in-2025/

The funny thing is, “perfect competition” in neoclassical economics is considered to be the most efficient system, as it theoretically allocates resources most efficiently (if you ignore externalities), and provides the lowest price for consumers. The end result is also that companies produce zero net profit. So any western economist should look at this and approve, right?

It’s honestly kind of absurd that direct military intervention in another country’s civil war is considered not only normal but heroic. Nevermind the horrific track record of US military interventions in general.

Does it say in what time range the growth/loss is measured? Is it from 2000 to 2018 or something?

Honestly, even Huggingface downloads are underestimating the dominance of Chinese open-weight models. Modelscope is generally the platform of choice in China, so Huggingface downloads reflect popularity in the west.

This is also a big problem for proprietary model makers. Companies like OpenAI or Anthropic are losing money right now and are banking on being able to dominate the market and jack up prices, but that’s not going to happen with all these free, downloadable models from China that can go toe-to-toe with the big proprietary models.

LLMs are pretty good at translation in my experience, often better than traditional translation services. But quality can vary highly between languages. English to French and vice versa is probably the best case scenario for Mistral models, so I wouldn’t expect the same level of quality for other languages, especially non-European and/or obscure ones.

Also, I do agree that getting more pro-communist text on the internet for LLMs to train on is something we could try and push for. Would certainly make for better data than all the liberal and right-wing stuff on the internet right now.

Can’t believe Trump shut down the insidious, pervasive propaganda funded by USAID for this ham-fisted replacement. It seems even US propaganda got enshittified.

Really, data centers? They’re some of the most rapidly depreciating assets you can build, and not at all comparable to the infrastructure and industrial expansion you would actually need to revitalize manufacturing. The problem with letting private companies dictate national policy is that they would always put their own profits above national interests.

There’s a pretty nice report on the global energy transition here: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/

They also have a writeup on the future of battery storage here: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/silos-for-sunshine-weve-mastered-harvesting-the-sun-but-storage-is-the-gamechanger/

The Solar + Battery combo is so, so valuable to many people with unreliable and/or expensive power. It really is the first time that households and small communities can have control over their own energy, when people can just stand up and do something about their power needs. The bottom-up solar boom in Pakistan is a prime example of this, and at least in this area I’m really hopeful.

Excellent idea. Give Trump more justification to restart his beloved coal plants. He’s going to save the planet!

Wait, archive.is is considered infamous? First I’ve heard of that descriptor

For comparison, China, the second largest silver producer, has an output around half of that of Mexico.

Mexico is the largest producer of silver, with nearly 25% of global production. They are also in the top ten producers of gold, copper, zinc and lithium.

Yep, just build more datacenters while gutting renewable energy. What a perfect plan!

This really is why socialist planning is indispensable. Capitalist economies can build unfathomable wealth (for a few people), but is unable to translate that into genuine well being for the people. China spends far less on healthcare than the US, whether you count per capita, % of GDP, or total spending. And yet China has a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate. The vaunted efficiency of free markets has completely failed to materialize in this sector.

Sometimes we need to remember that liberals generally see the world through vibes rather than any coherent ideological framework. When it’s a friendly country, they would call it foresight and comparative advantage. When it’s China they would call it government overreach and overcapacity. Their judgement isn’t consistent, and it isn’t meant to be. It’s much easier to manipulate public opinion and justify the next war when the people can root for/against something without needing to know why.