In 2000, President Bill Clinton famously looked at Beijing’s early internet controls and quipped: “Good luck. That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”
So far he’s been proven wrong. The CCP didn’t just contain the internet; it has effectively used the internet as a tool to entrench its control by building a system that fuses chokepoints, platform governance, and punitive enforcement into something like a sovereign information utility. That said, the jury is still out, and Clinton may still be vindicated.
On the one hand, LLMs can be understood as a natural outgrowth of Clinton’s (and Gore’s) internet but it can also be seen as its next evolution. By amplifying individual autonomy, LLMs present significant opportunities for economic growth but in pursuing growth they will also amplify individual agency. Therefore, the Party faces a quandary: pursue a strategy of economic growth and risk an erosion of Party authority or crack down and risk being left behind in the technology of the future.
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