Scaredy Cats The release of DeepSeek’s low-cost R1 model has precipitated an existential crisis in Silicon Valley, whose executives are now begging the government to protect their AI companies from the horrors of the free market. While some tech leaders are outwardly praising DeepSeek’s achievements, others are in the same breath demanding even tighter export controls on Nvidia’s AI chips to prevent them from reaching China. “Well-enforced export controls are the only thing that can prevent China from getting millions of chips, and are therefore the most important determinant of whether we end up in a unipolar or bipolar world,” wrote Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in a recent blog post. Amodei could get what he wants. In the capital, lawmakers are echoing calls for a crackdown on advanced AI hardware from entering China, The Wall Street Journal reports raising fears that a Chinese AI could win in the marketplace of ideas by becoming popular domestically. That’s Rich Such talk reeks of hypocrisy. US leaders love to harp on China’s so-called “Great Firewall” that blocks or limits access to many Western websites and services, including ChatGPT, enforced under the guise of protecting citizens from misinformation while being used to prop up domestic alternatives. Now, these freedom-loving power players are basically calling for their own version of such draconian measures to prevent Chinese companies from nipping on American heels. On Thursday, two members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — which should tell you what their whole deal is…Tech Execs Plead for Great Firewall of America to Protect Them Against Scary Chinese AI