Chinese AI Enters the Chat
Big week for DeepSeek: A Chinese artificial intelligence company released its model, R1, about a week and a half ago, sending American chipmaker Nvidia’s stocks plummeting. What’s going on here? And why does R1 matter?
Well, the model is profoundly sophisticated. It “can mimic the way humans reason,” says Bloomberg. Developed in 2023 by a quant hedge fund, the app distinguishes itself in a few major ways—”articulating its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt” (per Bloomberg) as well as being open-source (though “open-weight” might be a better way of putting it, per people who know more about the technical side than I could ever hope to). It’s also much more efficient compared with other models, using way less compute—the hardware required to train and run these programs—and thus requiring less money.
DeepSeek “claims its R1 release offers performance on par with the latest iteration of ChatGPT,” reports Bloomberg. “It is offering licenses for individuals interested in developing chatbots using the technology to build on it, at a price well below what OpenAI charges for similar access.” (Quick explainer video here, from my friend Melody Kim.)
The news of DeepSeek’s advancement sent American chipmaker Nvidia’s stocks tumbling earlier this week, though they’ve since rebounded a bit. Theories abound as to what’s actually going on here:
DeepSeek is legitimately impressive, but the level of hysteria is an indictment of so many.
The $5M number is bogus. It is pushed by a Chinese hedge fund to slow investment in American AI startups, service their own shorts against American titans like Nvidia, and hide sanction…
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) January 28, 2025
Nobody’s quite sure how this will end or what this advancement means for compute/chip needs, for the stocks of prominent AI hardware companies, or for global competition in the sector. In the meantime, God’s strongest soldiers (American Redditors) have been sent to fight his toughest battles (subverting the censorial impulses of R1).
Information wants to be free.
DeepSeek’s censorship is no match for the jailbreakers of Reddit
(from u/JimRice18) pic.twitter.com/mSzn5thkwP
— Justine Moore (@venturetwins) January 27, 2025
Federal shakeup: “A federal judge on Tuesday afternoon temporarily blocked part of the Trump administration’s plans to freeze all federal aid, a policy that unleashed confusion and worry from charities and educators even as the White House said it was not as sweeping an order as it appeared,” reports CNN. “The short-term pause issued by US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan prevents the administration from carrying through with its plans to freeze funding for ‘open awards’ already granted by the federal government through at least 5 p.m. ET Monday, February 3.”
Meanwhile, in the department of cost cutting, the White House issued a memo yesterday “offering to pay federal workers who don’t want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6,” reports Axios. Details here. The protocol for resignations? “1) Select ‘Reply’ to this email. You must reply from your government account.” Then, “2) Type the word ‘Resign’ into the body of this reply email. Hit ‘S
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