ON DEEPSEEK AND EXPORT CONTROLS

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

DeepSeek's achievements make export control policies more existentially important than they were a week ago. Export controls keep democratic nations at the forefront of AI development. The idea that the technology getting cheaper and more powerful is a reason to lift export controls makes no sense - they are one of the most powerful tools for preventing authoritarian governments from behaving aggressively on the world stage. DeepSeek's release is roughly on the expected cost reduction curve, which big tech has already factored into its calculations - it will still require billions of dollars of infrastructure to make AI that is smarter than almost all humans at almost all things.