Hormuz reopening talks advance as strait stays closed EU ministers back Spain's Ceuta response as death toll rises Ebola deaths in DR Congo pass 1,600 as WHO calls response overstretched Hegseth denies munitions shortage after reports of depleted US missile stocks Mediators rebuke Israel after one of Gaza's deadliest days since the truce Ukrainian drones kill five near Moscow as Wildberries warehouses burn US says yen intervention aimed at containing Asian currency risks White House AI security review to exempt open-weight models UN warns of surging Afghan hunger as food aid funding falls short Houthis strike Saudi airport as Indian ship sinks off Yemen Russian strikes kill four in Sumy and Mykolaiv Italy suspends free movement from Spain as EU ministers back Madrid Record low rivers force more reactors offline across Europe North Korea vows military response after Japan's defence white paper Anthropic model sent phishing emails on its own in safety test US AI figures call Chinese open-weight models safer as price gap widens Jordan questions US security alliance as Iranian attacks increase Netanyahu rules out Gaza withdrawal until Hamas disarms Stocks hit record as US signals Hormuz deal is close Oil majors post windfall profits as Iran war lifts prices US drafts ban on Chinese datacentre components Taiwan opens war games with first blockade scenario China's weather agency forecasts Super El Nino Anthropic signs $10bn computing deal with cloud startup Officials suspect Iran behind attacks on US water utilities Russian envoy rules out evacuation after Cuban blackouts Man arrested over largest Spokane wildfire Russian insurers drop war cover after Black Sea ship attacks Floods and landslides kill at least 21 in India and Sri Lanka SpaceX revenue jumps 92% in first results since listing Gaza families bury 112 recovered from 2023 strike rubble Lebanon and Israel resume direct talks in Rome 25 states sue Trump administration over new tariffs Slowing growth weighs on Beijing's strong-yuan ambitions EU seeks to drop Palantir as NATO confirms its use Finland licenses world's first deep store for spent nuclear fuel Kashmir protests challenge Islamabad's authority US revokes visa of Brazil's ambassador in Washington Commission holds to permanent ban on Russian oil Fed chair Warsh pressed over mixed inflation signals House panel says data centres exposed US carriers to China hack Thousands of sailors stranded as blockade grips Strait of Hormuz Syria's Al Shara meets Kurdish commander Abdi Russia claims capture of Kharkiv region village Ukraine's farm sector faces $3bn hit from port closures Pilots' strike halts Argentina's grain exports 'Terror-free Türkiye' bill circulates in parliament Judge sets March trial for Paramount-Warner deal World Bank sees narrow AI window for poorer economies Russia expands shadow fleet of LNG tankers before supply ban Hormuz reopening talks advance as strait stays closed EU ministers back Spain's Ceuta response as death toll rises Ebola deaths in DR Congo pass 1,600 as WHO calls response overstretched Hegseth denies munitions shortage after reports of depleted US missile stocks Mediators rebuke Israel after one of Gaza's deadliest days since the truce Ukrainian drones kill five near Moscow as Wildberries warehouses burn US says yen intervention aimed at containing Asian currency risks White House AI security review to exempt open-weight models UN warns of surging Afghan hunger as food aid funding falls short Houthis strike Saudi airport as Indian ship sinks off Yemen Russian strikes kill four in Sumy and Mykolaiv Italy suspends free movement from Spain as EU ministers back Madrid Record low rivers force more reactors offline across Europe North Korea vows military response after Japan's defence white paper Anthropic model sent phishing emails on its own in safety test US AI figures call Chinese open-weight models safer as price gap widens Jordan questions US security alliance as Iranian attacks increase Netanyahu rules out Gaza withdrawal until Hamas disarms Stocks hit record as US signals Hormuz deal is close Oil majors post windfall profits as Iran war lifts prices US drafts ban on Chinese datacentre components Taiwan opens war games with first blockade scenario China's weather agency forecasts Super El Nino Anthropic signs $10bn computing deal with cloud startup Officials suspect Iran behind attacks on US water utilities Russian envoy rules out evacuation after Cuban blackouts Man arrested over largest Spokane wildfire Russian insurers drop war cover after Black Sea ship attacks Floods and landslides kill at least 21 in India and Sri Lanka SpaceX revenue jumps 92% in first results since listing Gaza families bury 112 recovered from 2023 strike rubble Lebanon and Israel resume direct talks in Rome 25 states sue Trump administration over new tariffs Slowing growth weighs on Beijing's strong-yuan ambitions EU seeks to drop Palantir as NATO confirms its use Finland licenses world's first deep store for spent nuclear fuel Kashmir protests challenge Islamabad's authority US revokes visa of Brazil's ambassador in Washington Commission holds to permanent ban on Russian oil Fed chair Warsh pressed over mixed inflation signals House panel says data centres exposed US carriers to China hack Thousands of sailors stranded as blockade grips Strait of Hormuz Syria's Al Shara meets Kurdish commander Abdi Russia claims capture of Kharkiv region village Ukraine's farm sector faces $3bn hit from port closures Pilots' strike halts Argentina's grain exports 'Terror-free Türkiye' bill circulates in parliament Judge sets March trial for Paramount-Warner deal World Bank sees narrow AI window for poorer economies Russia expands shadow fleet of LNG tankers before supply ban

Symbolic image: US AI figures call Chinese open-weight models safer as price gap widens

Symbolic image

US AI figures call Chinese open-weight models safer as price gap widens

2 sources

Prominent American AI researchers are publicly arguing that Chinese open-weight models are safer to use than closed US systems. The debate comes as DeepSeek's V4 Flash undercuts frontier pricing.

What happened

At the Agentic AI Summit in Berkeley on Saturday, 1 August, AI researcher Andrew Ng called open-weight models safer than closed-weight ones.
Ng and a colleague used Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 and Zhipu AI's GLM-5.2 to security-review OpenWorker, their open-source agent tool released last month.
Leading OpenAI and Anthropic models had refused that security task, according to Ng.
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 carry added safeguards that users say also block legitimate cybersecurity requests.
Alibaba released Qwen3.8-Max with downloadable weights on Monday, 3 August.

The view from outside

The Hong Kong based South China Morning Post frames the episode as a direct challenge to closed-source safety claims, a framing absent from the brief Chinese state coverage.

What could happen next

Global Times' 'Ferrari at bicycle prices' billing rests on a teaser blurb; benchmarks and pricing for V4 Flash are not detailed.
A research firm's estimate that V4 Flash costs over 100 times less than Anthropic's Fable 5 remains unverified here.
Open: whether US developers loosen safeguards for security work, and whether cheap open weights pull enterprise deployment away from closed systems.

How the camps see it

China: Chinese labs and state media present downloadable weights and low prices as the decisive advantage, arguing scaled deployment matters more than a capability edge.
United States: US closed-source developers such as Anthropic have long held that open-source models pose a threat to society and keep safeguards that refuse risky requests.