Cultural Year Wheel Model: Analyzing the Logic Behind the Reversal of the AI Landscape Between China and the U.S.

In the past few years, there has been an unexpected shift in the development landscape of the artificial intelligence field. The United States, which was originally considered more open, has instead gained an advantage in closed-source AI; while China, seen as more focused on control, has taken the lead in open-source AI. The reasons behind this phenomenon can be explained by the "cultural and policy wheel model."

This model suggests that a culture's attitude towards new things is determined by the social atmosphere at the time, while its attitude towards existing things is mainly influenced by inertia. Each era forms a new growth ring on the tree of culture, representing the ideas about new things during that period. Once these ideas are formed, they quickly become solidified and hard to change.

Taking the United States as an example, although the 1990s experienced a peak of deregulation, the overall trend has shifted towards more control after entering the 21st century. However, the internet culture formed in the 1990s still maintains its characteristic of freedom and openness. This phenomenon is precisely the embodiment of the annular model.

Similarly, China has adopted an open-source strategy in the field of AI, which can also be explained by this model. As a follower in the AI field, China has chosen the strategy of "complementary advantages of commercial competitors," which coincides with the growing preference for open source among the developer community, thereby creating a friendly environment for open-source AI.

This model can also explain other phenomena, such as why attitudes towards risk in emerging technologies are often more cautious than those towards traditional extreme sports, and why the restrictions imposed on social media do not directly extend to the early internet.

The annular model reveals an important insight: it is very difficult to change established cultural concepts. In contrast, creating new behavioral patterns and establishing good norms and cultural foundations from the outset may be a more effective approach. This is also the appeal of the cryptocurrency and Web3 fields: they offer an independent environment that is free from existing biases, allowing for the free exploration of new things.

In the future of technological development, we should perhaps focus more on how to cultivate new "trees" instead of trying to change those deeply rooted old concepts. This approach may be more conducive to promoting innovation and progress.