CBP One App Shutdown As Mass Deportations Of Illegal Aliens Begins

CBP One App Shutdown As Mass Deportations Of Illegal Aliens Begins

For four years the Biden Administration and Democrats flooded the US with tens-of-millions of illegal aliens from third-world nations.  And, for the majority of that time they gaslit the American people, lying consistently about the border crisis they created.  Not only did they enable and encourage illegal immigration through government subsidies and incentives, they streamlined the process with an online app. 

The administration also acted to sabotage any border state that tried to take matters into their own hands.  Texas, for example, faced lawsuits and interference from the National Guard because their border barriers were proving too effective.  Governor Greg Abbott managed to reduce border encounters in Texas by 70% despite Biden’s attempts at sabotage.  Biden would later try to claim credit for that reduction in illegal crossings.

Democrat controlled sanctuary cities worked in tandem with Biden to ensure that ICE agents would be unable to detain and deport migrants arrested or convicted of violent crimes.  This led to dangerous drug dealers, rapists and murderers wandering the streets despite having arrest records a mile long.  The leftists care more about “sticking it to conservatives” than keeping their communities safe from psychopaths.   

In a just world Joe Biden and his associates would all be thrown in prison today, but at least we have the pleasure of seeing the Democrats squirm as their agenda to saturate the US with illegals falls apart.

Donald Trump has wasted no time and the mass deportations of migrants have begun.  First and foremost, Trump has shut down the notorious CBP One app – This is the same app that Biden denied as being a factor in the surge of illegals applying for asylum.  In reality, the app was perhaps the single most important tool used by migrants to game the system and gain entry into the US.  Biden’s revamped app streamlined the process like people were ordering amnesty on Amazon. 

After the app was shut down, border agents reported encounters with illegals dropped by nearly 50%.  The establishment media has tried to paint the event as a travesty with tens of thousands of migrants stuck at the border.  What they don’t seem to understand is, this is exactly what the American public wanted to see.  No more easy access to the US. 

Trump is reportedly sending at least 10,000 US military personnel to secure the border.  All agencies involved have been given a free hand to arrest and deport illegals quickly and the “catch and release” policies of the Biden era are over. 

While the border situation is being rectified, ICE agents under the direction of “Iceman” Border Czar Tom Homan are now actively rounding up illegals already in the US, starting first with migrants that have criminal records and then working their way down to migrants that simply entered the US illegally.  Skeptics that claimed Trump wouldn’t follow through on his promise of mass deportations were wrong yet again, and the results so far have been glorious.

Tom Homan’s response to the criminal migrant who said he’s “not going back to Haiti”?

ICE agents report at least 500 arrests in their first day of operations.  What is shocking is how many of these illegal aliens were set loose by Democrats despite their nature of their criminal records.  Most are gang members, or they have committed sexual assaults and murders.  Any illegals in the vicinity during these arrests are also being detained and deported.  No criminal record is necessary; eventually they are all going away.

The positive effects the deportations will have on the US are too many to count.  Reduced crime is a given, but there is also the collateral benefit of less people taking up American homes and driving up housing prices.  Not to mention, less migrant workers driving down wages and taking jobs from US citizens.  To be sure, the Trump Administration has a long way to go to reverse the damage already done by Democrats, but with border laws finally being implemented there is a good chance that most illegals will self deport rather than wait around to be arrested.   

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/25/2025 – 11:05

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Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Thanks Trump For Full Pardon

Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Thanks Trump For Full Pardon

Authored by Mehab Qureshi via CoinTelegraph.com,

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a double life sentence without parole, publicly thanked US President Donald Trump after receiving a full pardon. 

This marked the first time Ulbricht had spoken publicly since being released from a maximum-security prison in Arizona, where he was held for more than 11 years.

“Last night, Donald Trump granted me a full pardon. I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years. But he let me out. I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word,” Ulbricht said in a video shared on X on Jan. 23.

Ulbricht expressed gratitude, calling the pardon “an amazing blessing.” He added: 

Thank you so much, President Trump, for giving me this amazing blessing. I am so, so grateful to have my life back, to have my future back, to have this second chance. This is such an important moment for me and for my whole family.”

Since his release, a page dedicated to supporting Ulbricht on X, Free_Ross, shared:

Thanks to Donald Trump’s pardon, Ross got to hug his wife, mom, dad & sister outside the walls of prison. The past 36 hours have been a complete whirlwind and we keep pinching ourselves to make sure we’re not dreaming.”

Source: Free_Ross

Life after prison

Ulbricht, 40, was convicted in 2015 for his role in creating and operating Silk Road, a darknet marketplace that facilitated the anonymous trade of illicit goods using Bitcoin.

Since the pardon, supporters have rallied to help him transition into life outside prison. A wallet linked to the Free Ross campaign has received over $270,000 in Bitcoin donations. Among the contributors is the crypto exchange Kraken, which donated $111,111. Other donations included $2,400 in Ether, $900 in Solana, $200 in Cardano, and smaller amounts in BNB and Dogecoin.

“It feels amazing to be free, to say the least,” Ulbricht said, adding that he plans to spend time with his family and heal from his years of incarceration. “This is a victory […] for everybody everywhere who loves freedom and who cares about second chances.”

Millions in dormant Bitcoin wallets

While supporters have donated generously, Ulbricht may already have millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, revealed that 430 BTC worth about $47 million remain untouched in wallets likely linked to Ulbricht. These wallets, dormant for more than 13 years, were not confiscated by authorities.

“I found ~430 BTC across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht that were not confiscated by the [US government] and have been untouched for 13+ years,” Grogan posted on X.

Arkham Intelligence corroborated Grogan’s findings, identifying 14 Bitcoin addresses linked to Silk Road, including one wallet containing over $9 million in BTC.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/25/2025 – 09:20

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England’s Average Bachelor-Level Tuition Fees Surpass That Of The US

England’s Average Bachelor-Level Tuition Fees Surpass That Of The US

The OECD’s latest Education at a Glance report has found that England has the highest university tuition fees in the world on the bachelor level.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, the average tuition cost for nationals for a year at an English university even surpassed that of the United States by as much as 37 percent when adjusting for cost of living. This is despite the fact that England calculated its figure on the basis of two and three-year degrees, while the United State’s excludes so-called short-cycle degrees (which cost on average only around $3,500 per year on a PPP basis).

Infographic: England's Average Bachelor-Level Tuition Surpasses That of U.S. | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Even on the master level, a U.S. degree was relatively cheaper at just around $12,600 per year on average with PPP taken into account than England’s $13,100 for a year of bachelor studies.

OECD countries tend to have different approaches to financing a university education with many nations joining England and the United States in charging relatively high tuition fees, while around a third is not charging any fees at bachelor or equivalent level.

England, the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Lithuania and South Korea all have tuition fees in excess of $5,000 PPP.

Chile was not reporting to the 2022/23 edition but also showed annual fees in the thousands in earlier editions.

Countries in continental Europe like Spain, France and Germany all tended to have far lower fees by comparison, while Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland have no fees at all.

England’s tuition fees weren’t always so high, however.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, annual costs have increased by more than 700 percent.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/25/2025 – 08:45

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Gazprom In Turmoil, Forced To Hike Prices On Russians In Middle Of Winter

Gazprom In Turmoil, Forced To Hike Prices On Russians In Middle Of Winter

Authored by Liz Heflin via Remix News,

Facing losses, huge debts, and layoffs, Gazprom is now turning to Russian citizens to help it out of its financial woes, writes “Rzeczpospolita.”

Gazprom’s management is reportedly demanding that the Kremlin raise gas prices threefold on the domestic market. 

Alexey Sakharov, head of Gazprom’s strategic department, spoke about the company’s difficult situation:

The current level of regulated wholesale gas prices in Russia does not ensure the creation of financial resources in sufficient quantities to make the necessary capital investments in the maintenance and development of gas infrastructure in the interests of Russian customers. And this cannot but affect the reliability of gas supplies in the long term,” he warned during a meeting of the Council of Experts in the State Duma.

Sakharov argued that the price of gas for Russians must rise to a level that will allow Gazprom to provide gas to all regions and implement investment projects. The company will also have to triple the tariffs for gas transmission for independent producers. 

In May 2024, Remix reported that Gazprom had reported its first loss in 20 years and was running a $7 billion deficit. Earlier in January, the oil giant announced that it would have to lay off more than 1,500 employees from its headquarters in St. Petersburg.

“Gazprom is currently generating losses. The rate frozen since 2015 is 62.5 rubles per thousand cubic meters per 100 km, and the company’s expenses amount to 109 rubles. The price that Gazprom needs and demands from the Kremlin is 170 rubles,” the portal quotes Sakharov as saying.  

Gas in Russia used to be cheap, but everything changed after the invasion of Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the war, the Russian government has carried out a record indexation of gas tariffs for citizens in over 10 years. Last year, gas prices increased by 11.2 percent, in 2022 — by 3 percent in the summer and 8.5 percent in December. A new increase of 10.2 percent is planned from July 1, 2025, (the cumulative increase in gas prices will be 37 percent since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine),” they state.

Back in December, Putin admitted that Russia’s economic growth measured in GDP in 2025 will be half of what it was in 2024, growing less than 4 percent this year, and, according to the Kremlin’s official estimates, it will slow down to 2-2.5 percent in 2026.

The Russian president said the task for the authorities next year will be to “stabilize inflation,” which is soaring despite the efforts of the Russian central bank, which raised the interest rate to the highest level in 20 years.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/25/2025 – 08:10

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Visualizing Europe’s Dependence On Chinese Resources

Visualizing Europe’s Dependence On Chinese Resources

Despite efforts to reduce dependence on China for critical materials, Europe remains heavily reliant on Chinese resources.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, shows the percentage of EU raw material supply sourced from China for 12 raw materials used in various industries. Bloomberg published this data in May 2024 based on European Commission research.

China’s Dominance in Clean Energy Minerals

Europe relies 100% on China for heavy rare earth elements used in technologies such as hybrid cars, fiber optics, and nuclear power.

Additionally, 97% of the magnesium consumed in Europe, for uses ranging from aerospace alloys to automotive parts, comes from the Asian country.

Almost 80% of the lithium in electric vehicles and electronics batteries comes from China.

Assessing the Risks

The EU faces a pressing concern over access to essential materials. There is apprehension that China could “weaponize” its dominance of these resources.

One proposed solution is the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, which entered into force in May 2024.

The act envisions a quota of 10% of all critical raw materials consumed in the EU to be produced within the EU.

Additionally, it calls for a significant increase in recycling efforts, totaling up to 25% of annual consumption in the EU. Lastly, it sets the target of reducing dependency for any critical raw material on a single non-EU country to less than 65% by 2030.

If you enjoyed this topic, check out the EU economy broken down by country.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/25/2025 – 07:35

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Pentagon’s New Mideast Policy Chief Wants To Scale Down US Presence In Region

Pentagon’s New Mideast Policy Chief Wants To Scale Down US Presence In Region

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The Trump administration has appointed a new Middle East policy chief in the Pentagon who believes the US should scale down its military presence in the region.

Michael DiMino, a former CIA analyst, was sworn in early this week as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Before taking the job, DiMino was a fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank that calls itself the “hub of realism and restraint” and advocates for a less interventionist foreign policy.

Jewish Insider reported that DiMino’s appointment has alarmed pro-Israel Republicans due to his views on the region. The report cited comments DiMino made during a webinar last year where he said the Middle East does “not really matter” for US interests.

“Vital or existential US interests in the Middle East are best characterized as minimal to non-existent. And I think if you look at America’s experience as the primary security broker for the region… it has not rendered any lasting political, economic, or security benefits in service of US interests or the American people,” he said.

DiMino has opposed attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and war with Iran in general and has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and Syria, citing their vulnerability to attacks.

When President Biden launched a bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis in January 2024, DiMino opposed it and suggested the US should consider putting pressure on Israel to improve conditions in Gaza since the Israeli onslaught was the reason for the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping.

“Any multi-billion-dollar effort to fight a war in Yemen would render no political, economic, or security benefits to the United States. Strategies like ‘buck passing’ and diplomatic engagement are perfectly viable, would do the US no harm, and could resolve the crisis. Continued military action in Yemen, by contrast, presents dubious prospects for success,” DiMino wrote in Responsible Statecraft.

The US bombing campaign against the Houthis only escalated the situation in the Red Sea and did not deter the Yemeni group at all.

Now that there is a ceasefire in Gaza, the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have said they will stop their attacks as long as Israel abides by the truce.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2025 – 23:25

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Visualizing NATO’s And Russia’s Militarization Of The Arctic

Visualizing NATO’s And Russia’s Militarization Of The Arctic

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arctic has been considered a politically neutral zone, marked by the peaceful international cooperation of scientists.

But, as Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, as the Arctic ice melts and more land and sea becomes accessible, opportunities for resource extraction and maritime trade routes are opening up, making it increasingly attractive to vying global powers, with some observers questioning confidence in its stability.

Infographic: NATO’s and Russia’s Militarization of the Arctic | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is considered a turning point in Arctic relations. At the time the war broke out, Russia had been chairing the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation and coordination between the Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous Peoples and other Arctic inhabitants, covering a range of issues – crucially, excluding military security.

Seven of the eight Arctic Council members (all but Russia) promptly decided to boycott meetings over the war and only met again in 2023 to oversee the handover of the chairmanship to Norway. Without Russia, which is so large that its northern border makes up 53 percent of the Arctic coastline, the Arctic Council faces criticism over its international legitimacy, as it can no longer claim to be separate from geopolitical conflicts. In 2024, Russia then suspended annual payments to the organization until the council’s full activities involving all members resumed. Some virtual meetings started up again last year with Russian participation.

Russia has a larger military presence in the Arctic than NATO and has been investing in and upgrading its Soviet-era facilities. Chatham House, a UK think tank, says this is defensive in nature and that the Kremlin is opposed to the idea of starting a conflict in the Arctic. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Moscow is rather “pursuing economic ambitions, protecting its second-strike nuclear capabilities and projecting power into the Central Arctic, Bering Sea and North Atlantic”.

The Arctic Institute adds to this, saying that Russia’s control of the North Sea Route (NSR) would give an “economic and diplomatic lever with which to extend their regional influence”, highlighting how the Russian Northern Fleet has increased its surface and underwater monitoring of the route. The U.S. Department of Defense takes a stronger rhetoric, stating in its 2024 Arctic Strategy that Russia’s maritime infrastructure could allow it to enforce “excessive and illegal maritime claims” along the NSR between the Bering Strait and Kara Strait in the future. The document also highlights new logistical challenges in the region due to climate change as well as U.S. concern over the competition of a co-operating Russia and China, the latter of which has also shown interest in being a part of the region’s developments, calling itself a “near-Arctic state”.

NATO too has carried out drills and increased its might in the arena, with the addition of Sweden and Finland to the group last year. The U.S. DoD says it is monitoring developments and improving surveillance and early warning systems in the vast region to “ensure the Arctic does not become a strategic blind spot.” Data published by Foreign Policy illustrates how in Europe, Norway has 13 Arctic bases, including a new addition, Camp Viking, a UK training ground for Royal Marines Commandos.

This source shows the U.S. to have nine bases in Alaska in addition to those in Greenland and Iceland. Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s reiteration of wanting to buy Greenland in the past weeks, Washington has said it has no plans to increase the U.S.’ current military footprint there. Observers note that continued tensions and military buildup on both sides has the increased risk of miscalculation.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2025 – 23:00

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White House Office Of Gun Violence Prevention Webpage Goes Dark On Trump’s 2nd Day

White House Office Of Gun Violence Prevention Webpage Goes Dark On Trump’s 2nd Day

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

Second Amendment advocates are celebrating, and gun control activists are decrying the apparent closing of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The Trump administration has not confirmed that the office, opened by an executive order from then-President Joe Biden in 2023, is closed.

The office’s website was down the day after President Donald Trump officially took office and remains inactive as of Jan. 23.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who helped secure funding for the office, decried the closure in a post on the social media platform X.

In remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives on Jan. 22, Frost said the closure would cost lives.

“While lives are stolen, this admin is busy signing executive orders that have nothing to do with helping families and keeping them safe,” he said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

The gun control group Brady criticized the reported closure on its website, saying the office had reduced crime involving guns.

“The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention wasn’t about politics—it was about strengthening the government’s ability to protect Americans [more than 300 of whom are shot every single day] from guns. By shuttering it, Trump is putting the interests of the gun lobby above our kids, our communities, and our country,” Brady president Kris Brown’s statement reads.

The office’s critics noted that it was staffed by longtime gun control activists and headed by Vice President Kamala Harris, who supports banning certain semiautomatic rifles and other gun control measures. They questioned the legitimacy of a government office they said was meant to block a constitutional right.

“That office should have never existed, and President Trump is again proving his commitment to our Second Amendment rights,” Mark Oliva, Director of Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms echoed the sentiments in a Jan. 22 press release.

Committee Chairman Alan Gottlieb alleged the office was an attempt by Biden to bypass Congress and advance his gun-control agenda.

“Biden was trying to advance his gun control schemes with what amounted to a shadow government office because Congress rejected his extremist agenda of gun bans, gun registration, and other Second Amendment infringements,” Gottlieb stated in the press release.

When the office opened, Kristine Lucius, deputy assistant to the president and domestic policy adviser to the vice president, said its mission was to “prevent gun violence and save lives.”

Stefanie Feldman was the director of the office in addition to being a White House assistant to the president and staff secretary.

Greg Jackson, who led the Community Action Fund, which the White House described as “a national, survivor-led gun violence prevention organization focused exclusively on the impact on black and brown communities,” was one of two deputy directors.

Rob Wilcox, a senior director of federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety who also worked for Brady and served on the board of directors of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, was the second deputy director.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2025 – 22:35

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Distrust In Leaders (And Journalists) Ticks Up Again

Distrust In Leaders (And Journalists) Ticks Up Again

Edelman has once more released its annual Trust Barometer, capturing a snapshot of how people around the world feel about today’s leaders.

The findings are hardly positive, with survey data revealing that an increasing proportion of respondents across the 28 polled countries worry that government and business leaders as well as journalists and reporters are purposely misleading people by saying things they know are false or are gross exaggerations.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, around seven in ten people believe this to be the case for each of the groups of leaders, with distrust against journalists and reporters most widespread, albeit marginally.

Infographic: Distrust in Leaders Ticks up Again | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

The share of people who worry about this has increased significantly since the survey was asked in 2021 (up 11-12 percentage points in each case).

Respondents in the lower income quartile reported feeling greater levels of distrust of these leaders than those in the top quartile.

Where 63 percent of high income respondents said they had trust in business, government, media and NGOs, the figure was just 48 percent among low income respondents.

Scientists and teachers were the favored voices when respondents were asked which groups of people they thought could be trusted to do what is right, at 77 and 75 percent, respectively.

More than 32,000 people were polled across 28 countries in each survey wave.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2025 – 22:10

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China’s DeepSeek Bombshell Rocks Trump’s $500BN AI Boondoggle

China’s DeepSeek Bombshell Rocks Trump’s $500BN AI Boondoggle

Authored by Mark Whitney,

The future of humanity is being decided as we speak. And it is not being decided on a battlefield in Eastern Europe, or the Middle East or the Taiwan Strait, but in the data centers and research facilities where technology experts create “the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of Artificial Intelligence.” 

This is a full-blown, scorched-earth free-for-all that has already racked up a number of casualties though you wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines which typically ignore recent ‘cataclysmic’ developments. But when President Trump announced the launching of a $500 billion AI infrastructure project (Stargate) on Tuesday just hours after China had released its DeepSeek R1—which “outperforms its rivals in advanced coding, math, and general knowledge capabilities”—it became painfully obvious that the battle for the future ‘is on’ in a big way. And this is not a battle that either side can afford to lose. Here’s how technology expert Adam Button summed it up:

Imagine we’re back in 2017 and the iPhone X was just released. It was selling $999 and Apple was crushing sales and building a wide moat around its ecosystem.

Now imagine, just days later, another company introduced a phone and platform that was equal in every way if not better and the price was just $30.

That’s what unfolded in the AI space today. China’s DeepSeek released an opensource model that works on par with OpenAI’s latest models but costs a tiny fraction to operate. Moreover, you can even download it and run it free (or the cost of your electricity) for yourself.

The product is a huge leap in terms of scaling and efficiency and may upend expectations of how much power and compute will be needed to manage the AI revolution. It also comes just hours before Trump is expected to unveil a $100 billion investment in US datacenters. The model shows there are different ways to train foundational AI models that offer up the same results with much less cost. It also opens up far more applications for AI that would have been too expensive to run previously, which should broaden the applications in the real economy. 

– China’s DeepSeek may have just upended the economics of AI, forex live

Imagine the panic that is spreading across western tech capitals right now. AI was supposed to be the fast-track to absolute societal control and oligarchic rule into the next millennia, but now those pesky Chinese have overturned the applecart leaving western elites with a problem they might not be able to fix. (See—Unchecked AI will lead us to a police state, edri ) They expected that their microchip sanctions would sabotage China’s AI efforts for at least a decade-or-so but, instead, China has come roaring back with a system that has left the tech giants gasping for air.

Of course, China’s eye-popping strides in technological development are nothing new as editor Ron Unz pointed out in a recent article where he noted that “between 2003 and 2007, the US led in 60 of the 64 technologies.” Whereas, as of 2022, “China led in 52 of the 64 technologies.” That’s not a competition; that’s a beat-down in a parking lot. Here’s Unz:

China now leads the world in many of the most important future technologies. The success of its commercial companies in telecommunications (Huawei, Zongxin), EV (BYD, Geely, Great Wall, etc.), battery (CATL, BYD) and Photovoltaics (Tongwei Solar, JA, Aiko, etc.) are directly built on such R&D prowess.

Similarly, the Chinese military’s modernization is built on the massive technological development of the country’s scientific community and its industrial base…. With its lead in science and technology research, China is positioned to outcompete the US in both economic and military arenas in the coming years…. American Pravda: China vs. America, Ron Unz, Unz Review

None of this should come as a surprise, although the timing of DeepSeek’s release (preempting Trump’s Stargate announcement) shows that the Chinese don’t mind throwing a wrench in Washington’s global strategy if it serves their regional interests, which it undoubtedly does. Here’s a bit more background from an article by Benj Edwards at Ars Technica:

On Monday, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released its new R1 model family under an open MIT license, with its largest version containing 671 billion parameters. The company claims the model performs at levels comparable to OpenAI’s o1 simulated reasoning (SR) model on several math and coding benchmarks….

The releases immediately caught the attention of the AI community because most existing open-weights models—have lagged behind proprietary models like OpenAI’s o1 in so-called reasoning benchmarks. …

The R1 model works differently from typical large language models ….They attempt to simulate a human-like chain of thought as the model works through a solution to the query. This class of what one might call “simulated reasoning” models, or SR models for short, emerged when OpenAI debuted its o1 model family in September 2024. …

DeepSeek reports that R1 outperformed OpenAI’s o1 on several benchmarks and tests, including AIME (a mathematical reasoning test), MATH-500 (a collection of word problems), and SWE-bench Verified (a programming assessment tool)….

TechCrunch reports that three Chinese labs—DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi—have now released models they say match OpenAI’s o1’s capabilities, with DeepSeek first previewing R1 in November. Cutting-edge Chinese “reasoning” model rivals OpenAI o1—and it’s free to download, ars technica

This is a very big deal. The United States intends to dominate the world in this critical technology and yet the upstart Chinese have not only produced a system that is every bit as good as America’s best, but have made it more affordable, more accessible and more transparent. What’s not to like?

(Note—OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory. It is made up of the non-profit OpenAI Incorporated and its for-profit subsidiary corporation OpenAI Limited Partnership. OpenAI has emerged to be one of the primary leaders of the generative AI era. OpenAI is a privately held company that has open sourced some of its technology, but it has not open sourced most of its technology…. In contrast, DeepSeek AI R1 is open source which means its code is publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. Open source software is developed in a decentralized and collaborative way, relying on peer review and community production.)

Here’s more from political analyst Arnaud Bertrand in a post on X:

Most people probably don’t realize how bad the news (about) China’s Deepseek is for OpenAI. They’ve come up with a model that matches and even exceeds OpenAI’s latest model o1 on various benchmarks, and they’re charging just 3% of the price. It’s essentially as if someone had released a mobile on par with the iPhone but was selling it for $30 instead of $1000. It’s this dramatic.

What’s more, they’re releasing it open-source so you even have the option – which OpenAI doesn’t offer – of not using their API at all and running the model for “free” yourself.

If you’re an OpenAI customer today you’re obviously going to start asking yourself some questions, like “wait, why exactly should I be paying 30X more?”. This is pretty transformational stuff, it fundamentally challenges the economics of the market….

So basically, it looks like the game has changed. All thanks to a Chinese company that just demonstrated how U.S. tech restrictions can backfire spectacularly – by forcing them to build more efficient solutions that they’re now sharing with the world at 3% of OpenAI’s prices. As the saying goes, sometimes pressure creates diamonds. @RnaudBertrand

Get the picture?

Everything the US has done to stymie China’s development—including economic sanctions, chips embargoes, military provocations, political meddling, even arresting a Huawei executive (truly pathetic)—has blown up in their faces.

China’s well-educated, highly motivated, technologically adept workforce have produced a model of AI that equals or exceeds the best the West has to offer at a fraction of the cost and with open sourcing that allows users to
modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.

So, which version of AI sounds like a genuine benefit to humankind and which sounds like another scheme for transforming the world into a dystopian police-state controlled by aspiring tyrants and psychopathic control freaks? Here’s more from Bertrand on ‘why China is making AI available so cheap:

.it speaks to a different philosophy/vision on AI: ironically named “OpenAI” is basically about trying to establish a monopoly by establishing a moat with massive amounts of GPU and money. Deepseek is clearly betting on a future where AI becomes a commodity, widely available and affordable to everyone. By pricing so aggressively and releasing their code open-source, they’re not just competing with OpenAI but basically declaring that AI should be like electricity or internet connectivity – a basic utility that powers innovation rather than a premium service controlled by a few players. And in that world, it’s a heck of a lot better to be the first mover who helped make it happen than the legacy player who tried to stop it. @RnaudBertrand

So, it’s basically like everything else in this sick, twisted world where a handful of money-grubbing miscreants muscle their way into a new technology so they can fatten their own bank accounts while planting their bootheel firmly on the neck of humanity. It seems to me that China’s approach is vastly superior in that it’s clearly aimed at providing the benefits of AI to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost. Here are a few random comments on China’s DeepSeek AI that I picked off X that show how excited people are about this groundbreaking version:

The ramifications of this are huge. Every day China does something incredible, totally unlike the stagnation of the EU, talking all day while accomplishing nothing, or the latest evil plan oozing out of DC. This is just brilliant. & inspiring. & it WILL earn them more goodwill @CaptainCrusty66

It’s the china recipe book for success for every industry where western oligopolies have dominated. @bbooker450

AI will become a part of everyday infrastructure like electricity and tap water. DeepSeek is a signficant step towards that, thanks to its cost reduction and open source nature @MrBig2024

We are living in a timeline where a non-US company is keeping the original mission of OpenAI alive – truly open, frontier research that empowers all…. @DrJimFan

This is cool…this isn’t just another open source LLM release. this is o1-level reasoning capabilities that you can run locally, that you can modify and that you can study…
that’s a very different world than the one we were in yesterday. Al, comments line

Price comparison of OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek AI R1: R1 is significantly cheaper across all categories (96–98% savings). Now you know why big organizations don’t want open-source to continue, If humanity is ever going to benefit from AI, it will be from open-source . @ai_for_success

China is overturning mainstream development theory in astonishing ways. China’s GDP per capita is only $12,000. That’s 70% less than the average in high-income countries. And yet they have the largest high-speed rail network in the world. They’ve developed their own commercial aircraft. They are the world leaders in renewable energy technology and electric vehicles. They have advanced medical technology, smartphone technology, microchip production, aerospace engineering… China has a higher life expectancy than the USA, with 80% less income. We were told that this kind of development required very high levels of GDP/cap. But over the past 10 years China has demonstrated that it can be achieved with much more modest levels of output. How do they do it? By using public finance and industrial policy to steer investment and production toward social objectives and national development needs. This allows them to convert aggregate production into development outcomes much more efficiently than other countries, where productive capacity is often wasted on activities that may be highly profitable to capital, or beneficial to the rich, but may not actually advance development. Of course, China still has development gaps that need to be addressed. And we know from some other countries that higher social indicators can be achieved with China’s level of GDP/cap, by focusing more on social policy. But the achievements are undeniable, and development economists are taking stock. @jasonhickel

Unfortunately, the intensity of the competition between the US and China, ignores the inherent risks of Artificial Intelligence and its looming threat to human survival. In a recent analytical piece by the Rand Corporation titled AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?, the authors provide a disturbing window into a future in which “AI-enabled machines—of equivalent or greater intelligence and, potentially, highly disruptive capabilities” could pose a threat to our own existence. Keep in mind, the line between our historic reality and science fiction has already been crossed just as the probability that our own creation, AI, is likely “to become an actor, not just a factor” in the existential challenges faced by our species. Here’s a short blurb from this truly unsettling article:

Although technology has often influenced geopolitics, the prospect of AI means that the technology itself could become a geopolitical actor. AI could have motives and objectives that differ considerably from those of governments and private companies. Humans’ inability to comprehend how AI “thinks” and our limited understanding of the second- and third-order effects of our commands or requests of AI are also very troubling. Humans have enough trouble interacting with one another. It remains to be seen how we will manage our relationships with one or more AIs….

We are entering an era of both enlightenment and chaos…

The borderless nature of AI makes it hard to control or regulate. As computing power expands, models are optimized, and open-source frameworks mature, the ability to create highly impactful AI applications will become increasingly diffuse. In such a world, well-intentioned researchers and engineers will use this power to do wonderful things, ill-intentioned individuals will use it to do terrible things, and AIs could do both wonderful and terrible things. The net result is neither an unblemished era of enlightenment nor an unmitigated disaster, but a mix of both. Humanity will learn to muddle through and live with this game-changing technology, just as we have with so many other transformative technologies in the past….

The potential dangers posed by AI are many. At the extreme, they include the threat of human extinction, which could come about by an AI-enabled catastrophe, such as a well-designed virus that spreads easily, evades detection, and destroys our civilization. Less dire, but considerably worrisome, is the threat to democratic governance if AIs gain power over people….

AI cannot be contained through regulation, so the best policy will aim to minimize the harm that AI might do. This will probably be most critical in biosecurity,[3] but harm reduction also includes countering cybersecurity threats, strengthening democratic resilience, and developing emergency response options for a wide variety of threats from state and sub- and non-state actors…..

In light of the likely very widespread proliferation of advanced AI capabilities to private- and public-sector actors and well-resourced individuals, governments should work closely with leading private-sector entities to develop advanced forecasting tools, wargames, and strategic plans for dealing with what experts anticipate will be a wide variety of unexpected AI-enabled catastrophic events. AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?, RAND

In other words, humanity should encourage their business and political leaders to exercise sound judgement and prepare for unexpected disasters that could terminate the species.

That is simply not sufficient defense for the challenge we face.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/24/2025 – 21:45

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/dSU6b21 Tyler Durden