Source: X
The brief uncertainty around Anthropic's export restrictions—even after being lifted—damaged developer confidence enough to accelerate adoption of Chinese alternatives like Alibaba and Baidu's models, which face no comparable compliance friction. Regulatory unpredictability costs more than the restrictions themselves: companies building products choose the path of least friction, not the path of most American alignment. US policymakers trying to contain AI advantage through export controls may have handed market share to the exact competitors they aimed to constrain.