The Hunger Strike Paradox: AI Protests in the U.S. vs. Acceleration in China

AI Story of the Week

Two activists—Guido Reichstadter (outside Anthropic, San Francisco) and Michaël Trazzi (outside DeepMind, London)—are currently on hunger strike demanding a pause to advanced AI development.

Meanwhile, over the weekend in China:

• Alibaba released Qwen3-Max-Preview, a trillion-parameter model available via API only.
  

• Moonshot AI launched Kimi K2, an open-source AI model with one trillion parameters.

The paradox is clear: as meaningful human protests call for caution, Chinese labs are accelerating AI’s scale and openness.

Key Insights

1. Moral Urgency Meets Global Momentum
   Persona-driven protests amplify the urgency of AI safety. Yet, they can’t stop a globally competitive race—especially with Chinese labs rapidly scaling up.

   
   

2. Safety vs. Speed—A Western Dilemma
   Western labs face an existential choice: slow down (for safety) and risk lagging behind, or accelerate and risk safety. Meanwhile, Chinese development presses forward at full throttle.

   
   

3. Open Source as Strategic Advantage
   Kimi K2’s open weights transform open source from collaboration to a geopolitical maneuver, contrasting sharply with Alibaba’s more closed, API-only approach.

Why It Matters & How to Apply It

AI governance isn’t just a technical issue—it’s a coordination challenge in a multipolar world.

That reality reshapes the decisions facing organizations, individuals, and policymakers alike:

• Organizations: Don’t assume domestic caution will slow global AI. Build strategies that account for fast-paced global innovation.
  

• Individuals: Focus on developing skills that complement AI systems from any source—public or private.
  

• Policymakers: Domestic regulation alone is insufficient. International coordination is now essential to manage AI’s trajectory.

The hunger strikes capture the human drama of slowing AI. China’s trillion-parameter releases highlight the reality of acceleration. Together, they reveal the paradox of 2025: you can slow down one side of the race, but the race won’t stop.