Vivian Wang

But actually, chatbots from other countries also have red lines or sensitive areas that they can't talk about.

They just might be different.

And so when it comes to actually just the core performance of the model, if you're not asking about these sort of few politically sensitive questions, experts seem to think that actually China is not meaningfully held back.

Now, on the other hand, I think there is a potential issue when you look at the broader political environment and the reality that the government has shown that it's willing to crack down at any point if it feels threatened or a little bit not in control of the entire situation.

And I think that creates a really uncertain business environment that could make it difficult for Chinese companies to thrive.

I think it just creates a sort of weight in the back of the entire Chinese private sector's mind at all times.

They always have to be thinking about where are the red lines that we have to be careful not to cross.

And part of the issue is that that's not always clear.

Sure, there are certain really obvious ones, like the question of Taiwanese independence, but it's just really hard to know what might trigger a new red line or new dissatisfaction by the Chinese government.

And also when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world, Chinese companies and founders have to be really careful, too, not to maybe get investment from the wrong people or the wrong countries.

We actually saw a really clear example of this just recently.

So there was a really successful, hyped-up Chinese AI startup called Manus.

It eventually moved to Singapore, but its founders were Chinese.

Its parent company is Chinese.

Meta announced that it was going to acquire Manus for $2 billion, which was a really big deal.

But pretty much immediately after this was announced, the Chinese government said that it was investigating this acquisition.

They actually announced that they were not going to let the deal go forward.

And on top of that, during all of this, during this investigation, my colleagues reported that Manus' founders, after they went back to China for a visit, were actually blocked from leaving China.

Yeah, AI is just such a new field and also such a diverse field, right?

There are so many different types of AI.