According to an article published by Vitalik, people believe that 'China is a country that values closure and control, while American technology is generally more inclined towards open-source than Chinese technology,' but it now seems they were completely wrong. It is difficult to change a culture's way of treating existing things, as well as the way of treating things with already solidified attitudes. The appeal of the crypto space is that it provides an independent technological and cultural foundation to do new things without the excessive burden of existing status quo bias.
This article will bring forth Vitalik's proposed 'Cultural and Political Tree Ring Model' and its profound analysis of the current global landscape of artificial intelligence and technology regulation.
Core Logic: A culture's attitude towards new things is shaped by the social atmosphere at the time of formation, while the attitude towards old things is determined by inherent inertia. Once these 'cultural tree rings' are formed, they are extremely difficult to change.
The increasing regulatory reality under the name of neoliberalism
Throughout my growth process, one thing that often confused me was that people repeatedly claimed we live in a 'deeply neoliberal society' that highly praises 'deregulation.' However, I find it puzzling that despite the significant number of people advocating for neoliberalism and deregulation, the regulatory policies actually implemented by the government are quite contrary to these ideals. The total number of federal regulatory laws has increased rather than decreased, with regulations such as KYC (Know Your Customer), copyright laws, airport security measures, and others becoming increasingly stringent. Moreover, since World War II, the proportion of federal tax revenue to GDP in the United States has remained relatively stable.
Source of the image: Federal Register
Source of the image: Federal Register
(1) Intuition Meets Reality: The 'Tree Ring Model' Reveals the Reversal of AI Patterns Between China and the US
If you had told someone in 2020 that five years later, one of the United States and China would dominate the open-source AI industry while the other would excel in the closed-source AI industry, and asked them which would lead in which sector, they might have stared at you, doubting whether you were posing a trick question. This is because the United States has consistently emphasized openness, while China tends to lean towards closure and control. From the overall technological trend, it seems very clear that American tech companies favor open-source models far more than their Chinese counterparts! However, this intuition has proven completely wrong.
What exactly happened? In this article, I will propose a simple explanatory framework, which I call the 'Tree Ring Model of Politics and Culture':
Source of the image: PANews
Model Content:
A culture's attitude towards new things depends on the prevailing attitudes and incentive mechanisms at a specific time.
A culture's attitude towards old things is mainly driven by the inertia of maintaining the status quo (i.e., 'status quo bias').
Every era carves a new 'tree ring' on the cultural tree, and when this new tree ring is formed, society generates a series of concepts regarding emerging phenomena. However, once these concepts are formed, they quickly become entrenched and difficult to shake. Subsequently, a new tree ring will continue to overlay on this basis, driving society to shape the next wave of cultural attitudes and responses to new topics.
Next, we can analyze the previous situation and other similar cases through the above model:
(2) From the Internet to AI: How China and the US Are Guided by Cultural Inertia in Technology Regulation
The United States indeed experienced a trend of deregulation, but the peak of this trend mainly occurred in the 1990s (if you closely observe the data charts, you will clearly see this). After entering the 21st century, the overall atmosphere gradually shifted towards more regulation and control. However, if we look specifically at the things that 'grew up' in the 1990s (like the internet), we find that they have retained the cultural imprint from their inception—freedom and an open internet. Once this idea takes shape, it gets deeply embedded like tree rings. This solidification of beliefs has allowed the United States (and other countries influenced by it) to enjoy a relatively free and open internet environment for a long time.
Tax levels are typically constrained by government budgetary needs, which are largely determined by the rigid demands of healthcare and social welfare programs. In this sense, the 'red line' of finance (i.e., the bottom line) was drawn fifty years ago and has since been firmly solidified like tree rings, almost impossible to shake.
The legal and cultural caution and vigilance regarding the potential risks associated with various modern technologies or emerging phenomena is often extreme, even when their actual danger levels are much lower than some extreme mountaineering activities (the latter's mortality rates may be significantly higher). This phenomenon can be explained by the tree ring model: dangerous mountaineering activities have a history of hundreds of years, so their corresponding cultural attitudes were formed when society's overall risk tolerance was higher, and over time, they gradually solidified into a part of societal consciousness, becoming difficult to shake.
Social media gradually matured in the 2010s, and its treatment in cultural and political terms was seen, on one hand, as part of the overall internet, and on the other hand, as a unique new phenomenon. Therefore, the restrictive attitude towards social media usually does not directly extend to industries formed by the early internet. For example, despite the overall trend of increasing control over the internet, we have not seen significantly stricter measures against unauthorized file-sharing activities.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually maturing in the 2020s, with the United States taking the lead and China playing the role of a follower. Therefore, for China, adopting a strategy of 'commoditizing the complement' aligns with its interests. This strategy coincides with the growing preference for open-source within many developer communities, thus fostering a very friendly environment for open-source AI in China. This environment is real and intrinsic but also highly targeted, limited to the AI industry; in other more established technology sectors, the characteristics of closure and 'walled gardens' still widely exist.
Planting New Trees: Innovation is More Effective Than Changing the Status Quo
More broadly, the implication contained within is: once something has existed for a sufficient length of time and the cultural concepts surrounding it have solidified, changing that concept will be very difficult. What is easier to achieve is creating new behavioral patterns that allow the new model to replace the old one in competition, ensuring that good norms and cultural foundations are established early in the formation of this new model. This transformation can be achieved in various ways: developing new technologies is one method, experimenting with new social norms through the internet (whether online communities or physical communities) is another. And this is precisely one of the most appealing features of the cryptocurrency and Web3 industries for me: it provides an independent technological and cultural environment to explore and try new things without being overly constrained by existing 'status quo bias.' We no longer need to painstakingly nurture those old trees; instead, we can inject new vitality into this forest by planting and cultivating new species.
Original link: https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/03/29/treering.html
This article is reprinted with permission from: (PANews)
Original author: Vitalik
'Vitalik proposes the cultural tree ring model: analyzing the differences in technology regulation and why the AI patterns between China and the US are reversing' was first published in 'Crypto City'
