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Notes on the New Deepseek v3

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Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#2
I'm testing it for system programming brainstorming, code reviews and Python test units writing, and my impression is that it's a Sonnet 3.5 level model for most tasks. I said a few things here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCqi9JK440 but in general this is really an open weights frontier model, the first one that we get (IMHO llama 3.1 405B does not fit the definition, and the actual model quality is far from the benchmarks). Also the extreme inference speed due to MoE and other design choices improves the user experience a lot. I also tested asking questions with very large contexts (PDFs, large C files) at play, and it performs very well.

Also don't just focus on this model but check out what DeepSeek mission is, and the CEO words in the recently released interview. They want to be the DJI / Bambulab of AI, basically: leaders and not followers, and after V3 it's hard to say they don't have the right brains to do that.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#3
post #2

I'm testing it for system programming brainstorming, code reviews and Python test units writing, and my impression is that it's a Sonnet 3.5 level model for most tasks. I said a few things here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCqi9JK440 but in general this is really an open weights frontier model, the first one that we get (IMHO llama 3.1 405B does not fit the definition, and the actual model quality is far from th…

> IMHO llama 3.1 405B does not fit the definition, and the actual model quality is far from the benchmarks

Very true. Meta has been disappointing so far, and it takes away from the blog that it starts with a graph of a completely misrepresentative benchmark (MMLU) that shows things like Llama3.1-405b besting Gemini 1.5-pro, 4o-mini above Haiku 3.5, and so on.

But all this means is that the leap in terms of open weights model is even far bigger with Deepseek v3.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#4
A lot of talk about how much cheaper it is than all other models.

It remains to be seen what the pricing will be when run by non-Deepseek providers. They might be loss leading.

The comparison for cheap models should also be Gemini 2.0 Flash Exp. I could see it being even cheaper when it stops being free - if it does at all. There's definitely a scenario where Google just keeps it freeish for a long time with relatively high limits.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#5
post #4

A lot of talk about how much cheaper it is than all other models. It remains to be seen what the pricing will be when run by non-Deepseek providers. They might be loss leading. The comparison for cheap models should also be Gemini 2.0 Flash Exp. I could see it being even cheaper when it stops being free - if it does at all. There's definitely a scenario where Google just keeps it freeish for a long time with relative…

Given that we have open weights on it, the costs to run it relative to other open source models are fairly transparent.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#6
I know future GPU development is addressing the constrained ram problem, but it is nonetheless a massive problem for local inference. MoE seems to solve a compute problem, at the expense of compounding the ram problem. So I have a question... My understanding is that the typical MoE model starts each output token with a decision as to which expert model(s) to send inference tasks to. How often is it that the vast majority of predictions end up being sent to the same expert(s)? Wouldn't it be a more practical from both a training and inference perspective to do the same mixture of experts model, but choose experts on a much higher level of granularity? Like maybe on the level of the whole response, or clause, or sentence? At least then you could load an expert into ram and expect to use it without having to do massive IO loading/unloading constantly.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#7
post #2

I'm testing it for system programming brainstorming, code reviews and Python test units writing, and my impression is that it's a Sonnet 3.5 level model for most tasks. I said a few things here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCqi9JK440 but in general this is really an open weights frontier model, the first one that we get (IMHO llama 3.1 405B does not fit the definition, and the actual model quality is far from th…

Do you mind sharing your workflow with how you use this model? Is it integrated with an IDE, are you using the command line, maybe a UI with each question then copy/pasting the results?

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#8
If you understand how LLMs work, you should disregard tests such as:

- How many 'r's are in Strawberry?

- Finding the fourth word of the response

These tests are at odds with the tokenizer and next-word prediction model. They do not accurately represent an LLM's capabilities. It's akin to asking a blind person to identify colors.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#9
post #2

I'm testing it for system programming brainstorming, code reviews and Python test units writing, and my impression is that it's a Sonnet 3.5 level model for most tasks. I said a few things here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCqi9JK440 but in general this is really an open weights frontier model, the first one that we get (IMHO llama 3.1 405B does not fit the definition, and the actual model quality is far from th…

This has exactly my experience. I use all the main models almost every day. I switch between them several times a day and compare and contrast their output. Deepseek is shockingly good! How they got there with a relatively small budget is mind blowing.

Re: Notes on the New Deepseek v3

#10
post #8

If you understand how LLMs work, you should disregard tests such as: - How many 'r's are in Strawberry? - Finding the fourth word of the response These tests are at odds with the tokenizer and next-word prediction model. They do not accurately represent an LLM's capabilities. It's akin to asking a blind person to identify colors.

Ask a LLM to spell "Strawberry" one character per line. Claude's output, for example:

> Here's "strawberry" spelled out one character per line: s t r a w b e r r y

Most LLMs can handle that perfectly. Meaning, they can abstract over tokens into individual characters. Yet, most lack the ability to perform that multi-level inference to count individual 'r's.

From this perspective, I think it's the opposite. Something like the strawberry-tests is a good indicator how far the LLM is able to connect individually easy, but not readily interconnected steps.

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