Now this looks like a partnership between an American company and a Chinese company. First, there are initial points to raise here. Does this mean that DoorDash cannot use AI models from China? The Ridesharingforum.com team has more.
DoorDash under investigation
According to a report on South China Morning Post, a newspaper in Hong Kong, some of the biggest lawmakers in the USA are investigating food delivery app DoorDash on its use of China’s Moonshot AI Kimi K2.6 model.
How sure are they that DoorDash is using this AI? Its co-founder Andy Fang disclosed this information.
Earlier this month, Fang took to social to say that the San Francisco-based company had introduced the Kimi K2.6 model of Moonshot AI, based in China, into their internal AI code reviewer, stating they achieved better performance than merely using American models from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.
This time, it appears that this move is illegal, and solons are on their way to investigate this matter.
Moonshot AI is a Chinese artificial intelligence startup based in Beijing, China. Founded in early 2023, it is widely recognized as one of the East Asian country’s best AI “tigers,” being famous for developing the Kimi AI assistant and the Kimi K3 models.
Meanwhile, Kimi K2.6 is Kimi’s general-purpose model, possessing stronger and more stable long-term code writing.
What USA wants
Lawmakers are requesting information from the food delivery app about this, and this seems to be part of the on-going tensions between the USA and China over various things. Several companies have gone using Chinese AI as they appear to be cheaper, so as to save on the costs.
Letters were exchanged between the two sides.
Andrew Garbarino and John Moolenaar, House Committee on Homeland Security chairman and House Select Committee on China chairman, respectively, sent a letter to DoorDash, requesting the information to be in their hands by this August 14th detailing about each Chinese AI model that DoorDash uses and security tests conducted on these.
The letter also requests that DoorDash staff “with responsibility for DoorDash’s AI infrastructure, software security, model evaluation, procurement, and legal or compliance review” show up for an in-person briefing with the lawmakers by August 21st.
“[The] Committees recognize that US companies, from large technology firms to start-ups, may evaluate and deploy PRC-developed open-weight models because they can provide competitive capabilities, lower costs, greater customization, and alternatives to reliance on a small number of proprietary model providers,” the letter that RSF obtained stated. “Those practical considerations do not eliminate the need for risk-based safeguards or diminish the national security concerns associated with growing dependence on models developed by entities subject to PRC jurisdiction.”
What is the answer of DoorDash?
Well, in a letter reply, it stated that the company “proudly supports American AI leadership, and is working to ensure AI benefits Main Street, not merely the biggest companies.”
“We look forward to engaging with the Committees on how we safely and responsibly use AI, including American-developed frontier models and open-weight models,” DoorDash also wrote in its letter to the lawmakers.