twentieth July 2026 – Hyperlink Weblog
Who’s Afraid of Chinese language Fashions? (through) Attention-grabbing proposal from Ben Thompson that each addresses the hypocrisy of labs outlawing distillation towards their fashions regardless of coaching on unlicensed information, and will assist US open fashions compete extra successfully with their Chinese language counterparts:
The U.S. ought to move a regulation that (1) makes specific that accumulating information for coaching fashions is truthful use, and (2) bars phrases of service that forbid distillation, for U.S. firms at a minimal. Stopping distillation — which is actually simply querying the API — is almost not possible; the U.S. ought to go the opposite means and lean into a brand new copyright coverage that each indemnifies the labs and in addition ensures that what they discovered fuels additional innovation for everybody else.
Ben additionally theorizes that Alibaba’s choice to launch Qwen 3.8 Max as open weights – a reversal from their choice to not launch Qwen 3.7 Max in Might – might have been influenced by a current speech by Xi Jinping, who stated:
We should always seize this uncommon, historic alternative to encourage open supply, openness, collaboration and sharing.
And as regards to Qwen 3.8 Max – a brand new 2.4T parameter mannequin (almost as massive as the two.8T Kimi K3) – this is a pelican it drew:
I significantly loved seeing these notes within the (in depth) reasoning hint: “May add helmet? No.” and “Possibly add small bell? no.” and “Want possibly add small fish in basket? Not needed.”
