I wonder how a US lab hasn't dumped truckloads of cash into various laps to ensure these researchers have a place at their lab
I wonder how a US lab hasn't dumped truckloads of cash into various laps to ensure these researchers have a place at their lab
ICE has been detaining Chinese people in my area (and going door to door in at least one neighborhood where a lot of Chinese and Indians live). I was hearing about this just last week as word spread amongst the Chinese community here (Ohio) to make sure you have some legal documentation beyond just your driver's license on you at all times for protection. People will hear about this through the grapevine and it has a massive (and rightly so) chilling effect. US labs can try but with US government behaving like it is I don't think they will have much luck.
*edit: not that it matters, but since MAGA can't help but assume, these are all US citizens and green card holders that I am referring to.
Yeah, the Hyundai factory fiasco kind of dashed the idea that the enforcement would spare people working in favored industries setting up in the US.
The Hyundai factory "enforcement" wasn't even legal. Those workers were here to train US workers and the Hyundai employees had proper visas for this.
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-raid-hyundai-korea-ic...
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/20251112/hundred...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/attorney-says-detained-k...
The regime is powered by racism and doesn't think through things.
Allegedly, though the local labor unions seem to disagree. I guess we'll have to wait for the facts to come out in court.
If they are illegal citizens, they need to go.
Legalize illegal citizens
It’s beautiful at 37 to still see new phrases sometimes, illegal citizens is a quite beautiful one, lol. (also, note the post is clearly about, to put it in your terms, legal citizens)
"Papers, please." comes to the US of A.
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The reality is - it doesn't matter. The fact that they have had as many false positives as they have and the way they treat people in general causes it to have rippling effects even for people who are legally here, or are considering legally immigrating.
The risk and level of publicity is just too high for many people to even consider, especially people already intelligent/capable enough to immigrate anywhere else that doesn't have these issues or stay in their own country.
Have they had a lot of false positives? Almost every story I see seems to fall apart on further investigation. To be clear, I'm sure they have some false positives, but do they have a lot of them relative to any other immigration system?
Depends, how are we defining "false positive"? Ex:
1. Detained the incorrect person
2. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status
3. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status, but in unlawful circumstances
4. Detained the correct person, with the correct legal status, in ostensibly-lawful circumstances, but in a way which is unconstitutional or crazy
An example of the final category are the immigrants that spent years being vetted, following the law, and doing expensive paperwork to be citizens. ICE snatched them when they showed up on at the last second as they were to take their citizenship oath. [0] Not because of anything they did, but because today's Republican party has decided that it's OK to hurt people based on their "shithole" country of birth.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/30/us-citizensh...
These are all forms of false positives but the most popular news stories seem to be where they detain the correct person, correct legal status, lawfully, and the story happens to gloss over the facts about the legal status and focuses on the hardship. Yeah, it's a hardship to be split from your family, I can't deny that. But I'm not aware that most countries are very sympathetic to illegal immigrants.
If anything I find the stories featuring white/European people oddly racist because they seem to assume that I, the reader, will assume a white/European person couldn't possibly be in violation of immigration rules. But all the ones I've read turned out that they were indeed in violation of immigration rules.
Overall as a potential immigrant to the US myself, I find the process capricious and that US citizens by birth don't fully appreciate how painful it is or why it shouldn't be that way. But I don't find it notably worse or more onerous than the vast majority of immigration policies of other countries in practice.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. The most popular stories are the ones when they detain US citizens, rough them up, and then dump them on the side of the road somewhere without even apologizing.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/ice-immigrat...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-f...
[3] https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
I assume this is probably a function of our respective locations, because the most popular stories I see as an 'outsider' are those that would discourage tourism or immigration, not those that would worry already-citizens.
To address your stories specifically, my point would be that I'm still not sure whether this shows the US is notably worse on this than any other place.
E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal
"especially people already intelligent/capable enough to immigrate anywhere else that doesn't have these issues or stay in their own country" Isn't that the point? Come here legally or don't come at all.
The "legally" part is redefined on the whims of a dictator on a weekly basis.
No, all of the specific cases I heard about were Chinese people that were naturalized citizens (some for decades) who were cuffed and detained for a few hours before being released. As others have said it doesn't really matter, though. It's the sentiment that counts.
Even if you're not likely to be deported from a foreign country, you wouldn't want to face frequent gang intimidation tactics, would you? Simply feeling threatened isn't fun, even if nothing truly terrible will happen to you (not to speak of the real risk in being detained regardless).
Sometimes, often times no. They have detained multiple US citizens.
Who cares when you get a bonus per person either way?
Yes. Yes, so true. And the phd types building these models are probably even scared in China that ICE will fly there to deport them.
This thread is about bringing these people to the US.
What the US has done is dumped truckloads of cash to make it likely that as a legal immigrant you will be abducted and sent to a camp.
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I feel like we would disagree on the role of immigration in the US but I really appreciate you calling out how the current administration’s approach is only effective at making viral clips online. Meta comment, but it’s refreshing to talk with people who have different goals while still referencing a shared reality. Removing the masks and adding cameras shouldn’t be controversial unless your goal really is to make a paramilitary force for the president.
Making viral clips is exactly what they want.
Their goal is for every one person violently detained, 10 decide to leave on their own, and 100 decide to not come in the first place.
"Goal" implies there's a plan instead of just wanton cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Illegal immigration has been a political issue in the USA for a long time now. Trump is, however cruelly, fulfilling a campaign promise. One of the few he's managed to do.
The unstated but obvious (to me?) goal of what ICE is doing is not to get large numbers of people out of the country, but to drive costs down for migrant labor by further disenfranchising them, making them scared, marginal, etc.
If they actually thoroughly evicted non-status migrant workers they'd have a outright revolt on their hands from farmers and other businesses that depend on them.
Instead those businesses can now take further advantage of the fear of harassment and/or deportation to drive down compensation and rights.
Contrast with countries like Canada that have a legal temporary foreign agriculture worker program that provides a regulated source of seasonal migrant farm worker labour under a non-citizen temporary status, but with some rights (still often abused). It's notable to me as a Canadian that I don't see this being advocated on any large scale by either party in the US.
Anyways, all this just to say that the jackboot clown theater is the point, not a side effect.
Limiting the supply of migrant labor drives costs up, not down, and the ICE raids have had a significant negative effect on businesses reliant on illegal immigrants.
Do you have numbers on how many migrant farm workers have actually been deported or detained?
Because going around and harassing and deporting other or non-essential non-status immigrants would drive labor costs down because of the chill it would put through those who are grudgingly tolerated.
And besides, given the quality of personality ICE seems to be employing even (especially) at its highest levels, I simply assume there's corruption such that if I'm a large orchard or whatever I simply pay ICE to stay away.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/macroeconomic-implication...
"There was a significant drop-off in entries to the United States in 2025 relative to 2024 and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures. We estimate that net migration was between –10,000 and –295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative."
They do have a revolt on their hands from farmers… go watch some of their pleas for help.
It's nothing like it would be if ICE was actually doing substantially more than fascist theater.
There'd be no food on the tables, frankly. And people in Silicon Valley would have messy houses and algae in their pools.
Honestly think it’s just a matter of resources and they would rather play theater for their leader than actually do the job. However, the effect has been felt.
Soybean farmers are screwed.
Won't someone think of the poor tech millionaires' pools and their cleaning slaves? If we get rid of the slaves, they'll have to pay at first world cleaning rates! :(
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It's not merely a matter of detainment or deportation. Racial minorities, not just immigrants, face intimidation tactics. These guys are walking into schools, they're walking into social security offices, and courthouses. They stand around menacingly just to scare people. They harass random passerby's on the street, or in the grocery store. You would feel unsafe and stressed if this happened to you, no matter your circumstances.
Unfortunately, the most extreme is that it's the new normal that now, there's >0 chance that someone, whether they are a US citizen or not apparently, child or adult, can end up in a camp, with no due process.
Give them time, they've only just started. They do waste a lot time abducting random US citizens though.
I think it would be a useful exercise to look at all the revocations of legal access in the us, and then do the division to see how we've increased the likelihood of becoming an illegal, and therefore targeted.
I dont think youre as right as you want to believe. Certainly not as right as I want you to believe
Indeed; or, Europe badly needs a competitive model to hedge against US political nonsense.
Offering „You are welcome“ relocation package to Anthropic might be a good idea.
Anthropic has gone out of their way to make a point about how much they love and admire the US state and its defense sector. Only drawing the line at a very far point and even when they drew the line it was with a big thing about how they believe in the American defense sector blah blah blah.
In any case, there's no way Anthropic's investors in Silicon Valley would countenance such a move.
Also, I'm biased the logical place is Canada, not Europe. Much of the fundamental/foundational research on LLMs, and a large part of the talent, came from universities in Canada anyways.
Given how American govt. has treated Anthropic, I think you might be right. EU truly has a remarkable opportunity to make Anthropic/Claude European.
This US administration (or any admin) would almost certainly impose export controls on US AI technology before it would allow one of the frontier model providers to be acquired/relocate outside the US. It did the same thing when ASML wanted to acquire Cymer (California company that provides the EUV light source technology). The acquisition was only allowed under strict technology sharing/export agreements with the Dutch government.
Europe really just needs to rally behind Mistral. That's where they should dump their cash.
Can they actually prevent it though? In typical cases there would be IP licenses involved. But in this case it's a valuation based (AFAICT) on a team of people plus their infra. What happens if they all just happened to get hired by "AnthropicEU GmbH" a new entity which has been gifted hundreds of millions in computing resources?
Having one „champion“ is flawed European approach. We need local competition and headhunting to make it fly.
Hard to compete in an environment that’s anti-996 and the pay is so much less.
Yes. 996 is for lazy people.
I'm not sure goals are totally aligned though. The current models are created by enormous expense. We know that many stages are done incorrectly. I am confident that they can be replicated without any unique US knowledge.
At the moment my impression is instead that the issue is computational resources. It's important to stay near the frontier though, and to build up ones capacity to train large models.
Consequently I don't think we need Anthropic. It wouldn't be terrible if they came. Especially if they picked a nice location. Barcelona would be very nice, for example.
Given what Amodei thinks of spying non-US citizens, that's a hard pass from me. If you are that loyal (servile) to your country leaders, don't go elsewhere when you "discover" they are thugs. Put up with it or revolt (as Iranians are being asked to do).
There is no capital in the EU
It'd be great if they went to Mistral!
Competitive models are illegal in the EU.
They already kind of do, but I think anyone who was into US money has already left for it, and the money China is throwing at the problem is pretty good also. You can also have a lot more influence in a Chinese company without having to adopt a weird new American corporate culture.
Well, the problem aren't just the NSF funding cuts. Everyone else is already dumping truckloads of cash. There's also the public health situation (who wants measles or polio?), the risk of retaliatory attacks from the countries we're at war with, etc. You could write paragraphs about why the US is less attractive to researchers.
When I was a deep learning PhD in the first Trump administration, US universities were already very deeply affected by the Muslim ban, and so a lot of talent ended up in other countries.
Sibling commentators are rightfully pointing out that foreigners, especially those who would not be recognized as white, face an onerous and risky customs process with long-term and increasing risks of deportation. When you see a headline like the NIST labs abruptly restricting foreign scientists, _everything_ else feels uncertain. Even if someone doesn't believe they're personally at risk for deportation, they're still seeing everything else.
And then it all boils down to a reputational thing. The era where we were the top choice for research is in the past. If you start a PhD in the US on your resume during this era, you might be anticipating how you'll answe the question of why you weren't good enough to get accepted somewhere better.
If memory serves the father of the Chinese bomb studied in America and went back. It may be inconceivable to Americans but Chinese patriotism exists.
Besides you can live a comfortable life in PRC nowadays or live in a racist America.
Yeah that was my first thought is it’s a tit for tat poach. They got the Gemini researcher so google responded in kind.
China is also giving them dump trucks full of cash though. Plus you have to content with the nationalism reason (unfortunately this has died off in America for too many). The idea of building your country is valued for most Chinese I have met. Plus China is incredibly nice to live in, especially if you have lots of money and/or connections. So you can work in China, get paid lots of money, feel like you are doing good. Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.
China city life is amazingly convenient. Trains and subways are just such an enormous quality of life boost. Add to that the relative cleanliness of having nearly zero homelessness and you’ve got something very compelling.
I will say we are winning in accessibility. China doesn’t have much of a ramp game
All very true.
I wonder if you max out your options in China. It seems the Party is suspicious of ambition and high profile winners. I'm sure you can live comfortably, but there's a ceiling.
That’s not relevant to normal people. If you’re a billionaire with aspirations of power then it’s probably good there’s a ceiling. Sure beats having Elon randomly firing your public servants while high on ketamine.
what is the issue with having a ceiling?
Star athletes really hate being told they can't score more than 10 goals in a season because it's unfair to the other weaker players. The players will either leave to go play somewhere else, or they become weaker players themselves.
Why would a country want to welcome a psychopath whose goal is to make lots of money and wield political power that results from the money. I'm sure they would be happier with just as psychopathic people who make a bit less money but don't have aspirations of running the country from their secret bunker.
wowsa - wasn't expecting star athletes and sports to enter this conversation... wild!
I got an offer out of the blue for a consulting gig in ML, offering USD 400/hr in China. Assuming this was legit (the offeror seemed legit), it looks like China is also throwing a lot of Benjamins around...
> Or In America you can get paid lots of money, and get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model.
Isn't it just straight-up illegal in China to refuse the government from using your model? USA isn't perfect, but at least it has active discourse.
At least it has been decades since China Gov bombed innocent people in other countries. A peaceful and responsible government.
> A peaceful and responsible government.
People in Hong Kong died. Over 10,000 were arrested and many are still in prison. The rest are permanently disgraced in their social-credit society.
Again, USA is not perfect, but let's not dream up some fantasy about the CCP.
This "social credit" thing is dead in China.
As an American, I have no fear of calling the US President a pedo or saying Fuck the Police on my Twitter. Not the case in China. It's horrifying.
https://reclaimthenet.org/china-man-chair-interrogation-soci...
> I have no fear of calling the US President a pedo or saying Fuck the Police on my Twitter.
Does that matter? In China people don't judge the state of their civilization by how easily you can insult the police but whether you need to be afraid to meet them on the street. "I can insult my pedophile president" (who doesn't care if you do) isn't exactly a flex.
It does tell us something though that the evaluation of American life now consists of parasocial interactions with the president on social media. I'm starting to belief Bruno Maçães, ex Portuguese secretary of state, was prescient with his diagnosis that American material society has rotted to the point where life is now entirely defined by virtual interactions. That's the difference between China and the US today.
The president's a pedophile, a criminal, undeterred by democracy, economy or social disorder but you can freely yell into the void. Have you considered that in the US one can freely say all these things precisely because that's irrelevant?
> The president's a pedophile, a criminal, undeterred by democracy, economy or social disorder but you can freely yell into the void. Have you considered that in the US one can freely say all these things precisely because that's irrelevant?
Americans will vote for their Congress representatives in November. They will have a chance to decide how they want their government to be run. The US President was already shot-down once by the Supreme Court (tariffs). The system is working. Let the voters decide, and then let it work.
Oh, China absolutely does not tolerate _public_ dissent very much including highly visible social media posts. Everybody there knows that.
But this:
> According to the social credit system, Chinese citizens are punishable if they indulge in buying too many video games, buying too much junk food, having a friend online who has a low credit score, visiting unauthorized websites, posting “fake news” online, and more.
...is just pure bullshit. There were _ideas_ about including these kinds of stuff into the score, but they have never been implemented. At this point, the social credit score is only used to find people who dodge court decisions.
"At this point" being the key phrase.
A key phrase that can be used to speculate about whatever bs one can think of.
A low effort and bad faith rebuttal on your part.
Please ignore the gun pointed at your head / social credit score / masked goons roving about Minnesota / flock cameras / etc as it hasn't been used against you at this point.
Constant military drills around Taiwan isn't peaceful or responsible.
China is bullying lots of countries in the SCS (ramming Philippine coast guard ships, building military installations in the SCS, ...). Not peaceful or responsible.
AKA defending itself against separatists and sovereignty intrusions from much less powerful aggressors with unreasonable amount of restraint. One would argue overly peaceful, and irresponsible to the point of detrimental peace disease. BTW PRC settled most border disputes in recorded history with most concessions, majority over 50%, that objectively makes PRC the most peaceful rising power in recent history. Even in SCS PRC was second last to militarize, the other disputees started land reclamations and militarization first (apart from Brunei), aka a fucked around and find out situation. Even then all PRC did was build a bigger island, instead of glassing theirs, PRC coast guard last to weaponize as well.
What's ironic is that China is desperately trying to be that country, but the US has then in a geographic/geopolitical choke hold.
I would imagine if it isn't illegal its a very bad idea not to. But regardless, I would bet large amounts of money that you would never get any flack for doing anything for the government. If I went on X, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok and said "Hey I am a software engineer selling awesome new technology to the government and military!" I am going to get Americans attacking me for supporting Trump / ICE / FBI whatever the current issue of the day is. If I did the same on Douyin or Weibo the response would be able making China strong, and there would be no criticism of that choice.
Sure, but the difference is that while the Chinese state is measurably awful on all sorts of human rights things within their own borders... they're not currently dropping bombs on foreign cities, starving a neighbour of critical petroleum shipments, or heavily funding an ally to slowly exterminate a population.
What point are you trying to make here? Are government abuses somehow inherently better or worse depending on where they happen?
Do you imagine an invasion of Taiwan won't involve dropping bombs?
I feel like we should be able to agree that providing authoritarian regimes with high tech tools is immoral in the general case.
My point is as a non-American I feel no allegiance to either state, and current events don't make me sympathetic to the geo-political aims of the USA. So I don't see a strong moral case for this tech being an especial purvey of either party.
If you'd asked me two years ago my answer might have been different.
And to the original point, yeah, I would feel entirely justified in the critique of engineers in providing tools to the US defense apparatus at this point.
At least the Chinese shops are giving their weights away for free, and not demanding that any government ban the rest.
> China is incredibly nice to live in
I'm sure it's a very nice place to live if you're content to just stay quiet in society and never put a political sign in your yard or even just talk about the wrong thing with your friend in a WeChat.
This is an exaggeration. Nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.
In practical terms, if you're not kind of person who would want to run for an office in the US, China is incredibly comfortable. Cities are safe, with barely any violent crime. Public drug use is nonexistent. And with the US-level AI researcher income, you'd be in the top 0.1% earners.
> nobody in China cares about what you speak with each other privately, and people talk about stupid policies all the time. The government cares about _public_ actions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252833
My comment and the linked video says otherwise. The guy was in a private group chat and said some nasty things about the police for confiscating his motorcycle. Now he's arrested and in the Tiger Chair.
How are we explaining this?
Group with 75 people. That's a crowd, doesn't matter if gated behind QR code invites. Shit talk cops and gov with the bois is fine. Shit talk / soapbox in a crowd (virtual or real) and get caught or reported = drink tea on the menu.
try to protest in america and see how that works out for you long-term. or say protest against genocide in gaza at an uni or generally in public…
Sigh. Let's not invent things? You can protest anything in the US just fine, with generally no consequences. Heck, our local _high_ _school_ students go out and protest everything to weasel out of classes.
Trump admin did put people in prison and then deported them, for doing nothing more than protesting.
Not as bad as China sure, but not as good as other civilized nations.
Let's just clarify that visitors don't have the same rights as citizens. Whether or not you agree with the current administration's policies hopefully we can agree that it is entirely reasonable for them to deport foreign political dissidents more or less at their discretion.
If you want to put this to the test try crossing the Canadian border and when they ask you the purpose of your visit respond that it's to attend a protest.
> Trump admin did put people in prison and then deported them, for doing nothing more than protesting.
Link? I’m guessing we’re going to see that this definition of “protesting” involves being aggressive and directly in the face of law enforcement officers, not merely holding a sign at a distance.
this is funny if you are being sarcastic
Oh, I fully support their right to protest.
It just looks a bit ridiculous when students walk out in protest against things that are far outside the influence of their school, city, or even state.
> get yelled at by people online because the Government wants to use your model
Well duh, as recently demonstrated, an US model used by the US gov will 100% end up murdering actual children sooner than later, in this case less than a calendar year in some far flung war that many Americans do not support. Alternatively PRC model used by CCP might kill in some hypothetical future but for national reunification/rejuvenation that many Chinese support. At the end of the day, researchers and population on one side sleeps more soundly.
Chinese people are very racist towards non-Chinese. It might seem like a happy utopia, but if you aren't Chinese, then you may not really enjoy your time there. It may not be quite as bad as being black in rural US south, but being black (or anything non-Chinese) in China is still not going to be a good time.
Racism in even the worse parts of America doesn't even begin to touch the racism present in monocultural/monoracial countries.
Have you experienced racism? In Japan atleast, it was evenly applied. That company won't rent to foreigners but this one will. That company won't hire foreigners but this one will. Police will bother you if you ride a bike, but they will be polite while they waste 10 minutes of your time asking for your gaijin card for biking while foreign.
In the US people try to hide it and are far more sinister about it, since there are a lot of laws against obvious racism. The cops are also happy in the US to just kill you.
The racism in the US comes out of hate where as what I experienced abroad was more, we don't think you'll fit in and follow the rules and you have to constantly prove that you can.
I didn't spend too much time in China so maybe it is a racist hell hole.
But my experience in Japan was that white immigrants were way more inclined to make a huge deal about the lighter racism they experienced because they had never been somewhere where their skin color was a disadvantage.
"we don't think you'll fit in and follow the rules and you have to constantly prove that you can"
I speculate that if you were a permanent minority instead of a visiting inconvenience, then that 'nice' racism you describe would metastasize into the type of racism you see in the USA. It's more friction from time and exposure added on. And, you know, slavery.
This is a weird argument. Japanese racism is fine because the Japanese are polite and apply it evenly?
Despite what some on this site will argue, racism is always bad.
What do you mean by racist? I'm a white/hispanic American and spent 3 months in China and didn't really notice anything problematic towards me.
Wild to call 1.42 billion people racist despite having met very few of them.
It's funny that you think you know who I've met. YOU DON'T KNOW ME.
Damn that social conscience, huh?
They probably have tried, but you have to have more cash than those researchers feel they can get starting their own lab. When you consider the fact that their new startup lab would have the entire nation of China as, in effect, a captive market; you start to see how almost any amount of money would be too little to convince them not to make a run at that new startup. If money is their aim.
I think Alibaba needs to just give these guys a blank check. Let them fill it in themselves. Absent that, I'm pretty sure they'll make their own startup.
I do think it'd be a big loss for the rest of the world though if they close whatever model their startup comes up with.
> I do think it'd be a big loss for the rest of the world though if they close whatever model their startup comes up with.
That's very likely to happen once the gap with OpenAI/Anthropic has been closed and they managed to pop the bubble.
I don’t know, the EV bubble deflated and Chinese firms are still pumping them out with subsidies like their life depends on it.