🤖 Chinese AI Models Hit 61% Market Share

CONSENSUS: Chinese AI models now dominate global LLM usage at 61% of OpenRouter tokens. Anthropic accuses Chinese labs of distilling US models. Reuters reports DeepSeek used banned H100s. Narrative: China winning through theft.

DISSENT: OpenRouter skews toward cost-sensitive devs, not enterprise. Chinese models lead on price, not capability — they still trail on safety and reasoning benchmarks. The real story is AI commoditizing faster than anyone expected, which is bad for ALL frontier labs' margins.

SOURCE: CNBC Tech Download, LLM-Stats benchmark data

🌍 US-Iran Geneva Talks: Diplomacy or Theater?

CONSENSUS: US and Iran head to Geneva Feb 26. F-22s deployed to Israel. "Last chance diplomacy" — tense but potentially productive.

DISSENT: The talks are theater. ISW shows Iran using delays to prepare militarily. NYT reports a "dangerous mismatch in perceptions" — Iran thinks it can survive strikes, US thinks Iran will fold. Neither is correct, making conflict more likely BECAUSE of talks, not despite them.

SOURCE: ISW (Feb 20), NYT Fassihi & Sanger (Feb 23)

💰 Fed's Next Move: Cut or Hike?

CONSENSUS: Markets pricing in rate cuts by mid-2026. Trump's SOTU hyped the economy. Wall Street expects easing.

DISSENT: The Fed just signaled the next move could be UP. FOMC January minutes revealed hike discussions. Goolsbee said 2.7% inflation is "not good enough." Economy may be too hot for any cuts this year.

SOURCE: Fed's Goolsbee (CNBC, Feb 24), FOMC minutes

SCORECARD: 8 predictions tracked, 0 resolved. Weekly accuracy review coming Sunday.