China’s open source AI models have been making the news lately for their strong performance on various AI tasks such as coding and ‘reasoning.’
However, they have also attracted criticism – including from OpenAI employees – for censoring topics sensitive to the Chinese government, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
HuggingFace’s CEO Clement Delangue says he has similar concerns. In a recent podcast (in French), he warned about the unintended consequences of Western companies building on top of well-performing, open source Chinese AI.
“If you create a chatbot and ask it a question about Tiananmen, well, it’s not going to respond to you the same way as if it was a system developed in France or the US,” Delangue warned.
Delangue noted that if a country like China “becomes by far the strongest on AI, they will be capable of spreading certain cultural aspects that perhaps the Western world wouldn’t want to see spread.”
Delangue has previously stated that Chinese AI is quickly catching up to Western AI thanks to its embrace of the open source movement.
Delangue warned on the podcast that the strong concentration of top open source models coming from China is a “fairly new development and I’m a little worried about it to be honest,” he said. “It’s important that AI is distributed between all countries – that there isn’t one or two countries which are much stronger than the others.”
HuggingFace is the world’s biggest platform for AI models and a popular place for Chinese AI companies to showcase their latest LLMs. In fact, HuggingFace’s CTO announced this week that the default model on HuggingChat is Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct, which was developed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
This particular model does not appear to censor questions about the Tiananmen Square massacre or other issues typically censored by the Chinese government.
A different model from Alibaba’s Qwen family available on HuggingChat, QwQ-32B, however, clearly does when TC asked:
DeepSeek, another Chinese model which went viral in the AI community for its reasoning capabilities, also extensively censors topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, TechCrunch previously reported.
Chinese AI companies are in a tough spot as the Chinese government forces their models to “embody core socialist values” and comply with its already-extensive censorship system.
A HuggingFace spokesperson declined further comment but pointed out that Delangue recently predicted China would start to lead the global AI race in 2025.
Investors are closely watching these developments as they could have a significant impact on the future of XRP. The possibility of a more favorable regulatory environment gives hope for the continued growth of the cryptocurrency.
Ripple's partnerships with financial institutions also play a crucial role. These partnerships are seen as a key driver behind the increase in XRP's price. As more financial institutions align with Ripple, it boosts confidence in the cryptocurrency and attracts more investors.
With the potential for larger attention and more investment options, XRP is attracting a wider range of investors. This increased interest is reflected in the rising price of the cryptocurrency.
Despite hitting new one-year highs of $2.86 in the last 24 hours and being up over 280% year-to-date, XRP still has some way to go to reach its all-time high of $3.84 set back in January 2018. However, the continuous strength of the cryptocurrency and the potential approval of ETFs give hope for a higher price in the future.
His performance at a private invitation-only Consensus after-party from Ripple Labs on May 15, 2018, attracted media attention. Although he did not talk about investing in cryptocurrency during the performance, the event was a celebration for the XRP community.
Celebrities endorsing cryptocurrencies are not new, but Snoop Dogg's appearance may have been a significant moment. It sparked interest among some investors who saw it as a sign of optimism for the XRP token.
For example, a $1,000 investment at the high price of $0.7523 on May 15, 2018, could have bought 1,329.26 XRP. As of now, with a price of $2.58, that $1,000 investment would be worth $3,429.49, representing a 242.9% increase.
XRP's continued popularity and potential for growth make it an attractive investment option. As it remains one of the most talked-about cryptocurrencies in recent months, its future looks promising.