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DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

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141–150 of 268 posts

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#141
post #71

How do the valuations of foundation model companies compete with them being firmly open sourced by Facebook and DeepSeek? It seems likely that building these models will not produce hundreds of billions in value given China and Facebook are giving them away largely for free.

Those valuations are built on an imaginary future the founders made investors believe. The idea is: if we reach true AGI first, we are going to own ALL THE MONEY! Which erroneously assumes that models can't be siphoned off/recreated, as deepseek proved possible and even reasonably doable. Which in turn fundamentally shows that both openai and anthropic very likely have basically no moat. I can almost smell another AI…

I cant see a future where AGI exists and money in general isn't worthless within 6 months of it existing. Either it kills us all, or makes the creator so much money that it's essentially worthless because they're the only one with money, or creates a utopia where money isn't needed.

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#142
post #21

I really admire their mindset of striving for the betterment of humanity. There was a time when OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Musk used to talk with that same lofty vision. But now, they've all shifted to competing for national interests instead, which is honestly quite disappointing.

Well, it’s a highly effective PR tactic that works well for the small fish. You say your competition is too selfish and you just want to help people and it creates a bunch of goodwill you can use to grow. Once you grow, your view on things changes, and you’re able to be more selfish. It’s not guaranteed things will go that way, but it’s certainly true that this is a good PR tactic for new entrants in to a crowded fie…

Yes, it is PR. While individuals can be altruistic visionaries, shareholders will protest any action that is not in the company's interest.

For a smaller player, open-sourcing might be a strategic move. It would likely go unnoticed if a small Chinese company released a model "almost as good as" ones from the top US players. But releasing it as open source is a game-changer.

However, open source isn't just for small players. Microsoft develops Visual Studio Code and Meta develops PyTorch - to name a few examples out of hundreds. In these cases, it's also PR - they can afford it, and it doesn't compete with their core business.

There's a story about someone asking the Dalai Lama whether all altruism is actually a form of egoism, since we do good things to feel better. He responded that if that's the case, we need more of this type of egoism. (I can't find the exact source, but it aligns with his quote "Being wisely selfish means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone.")

So yes, I want to see more of this kind of PR.

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#143

Deepseek seems to be having huge PR wins as the "oh shucks" modest boy genius, while the Americans seem like pouty jerks. Amodei's / Hassabis' comments in particular came off as so arrogant and annoying.

>> Amodei's / Hassabis' comments in particular came off as so arrogant and annoying. Exactly which part of their writings comes off as arrogant to you? The only point in Amodei's article[0] that could be remotely be interpreted as arrogant is this: All of this is to say that DeepSeek-V3 is not a unique breakthrough or something that fundamentally changes the economics of LLM’s; it’s an expected point on an ongoing co…

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Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s a highly effective PR tactic that works well for the small fish. You say your competition is too selfish and you just want to help people and it creates a bunch of goodwill you can use to grow. Once you grow, your view on things changes, and you’re able to be more selfish. It’s not guaranteed things will go that way, but it’s certainly true that this is a good PR tactic for new entrants in to a crowded fie…

There is no PR tactic, the only company that will stay on top will be the one that open source its models and it is free of use. There are other ways to monetize. People around the globe are not going to use on daily basis, anything that is paid. LLM's are not that different than programming languages. Imagine Guido van Rossum charging $200 so you can use Python...

Even for those that will pay, many light users will prefer a subscription over dropping $10k on rapidly depreciating hardware to run a half decent model.

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#145
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I have a more practical view: there's nothing wrong in making profit, the important thing is that they are also doing some good.

> As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practicing your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!

Friedrich Engels: The Condition of the Working-class in England

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#146
post #21

I really admire their mindset of striving for the betterment of humanity. There was a time when OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Musk used to talk with that same lofty vision. But now, they've all shifted to competing for national interests instead, which is honestly quite disappointing.

Power does terrible things to people, we really need to stop letting that happen.

"Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." - Frank Herbert

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#147
post #21

I really admire their mindset of striving for the betterment of humanity. There was a time when OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Musk used to talk with that same lofty vision. But now, they've all shifted to competing for national interests instead, which is honestly quite disappointing.

Well, it’s a highly effective PR tactic that works well for the small fish. You say your competition is too selfish and you just want to help people and it creates a bunch of goodwill you can use to grow. Once you grow, your view on things changes, and you’re able to be more selfish. It’s not guaranteed things will go that way, but it’s certainly true that this is a good PR tactic for new entrants in to a crowded fie…

I think DeepSeek is trying to push the idea that LLMs are not marketable products themselves, but are a part of the 'digital commons', as in a hard to develop and maintain software which in of itself does not produce value, but can be the foundation of a product that does. This is very similar to what Facebook is doing with Llama, or what is going on with big open source projects, like databases or the Linux kernel.

I also think that the companies that are doing that have a different idea on how to make money. Facebook's competitive edge lies in all the people using their social media, and for the Chinese, I think their edge lies in manufacturing physical products, so they try to commodify the software component.

Which is in stark contrast to the US, who have a world-beating software and silicon industry, but are merely competent in other areas, so it makes sense for them to want to avoid that.

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#148
post #118
post #21

I really admire their mindset of striving for the betterment of humanity. There was a time when OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Musk used to talk with that same lofty vision. But now, they've all shifted to competing for national interests instead, which is honestly quite disappointing.

And before you get carried away, let's wait and see. A chinese company making claims of just open source is hard to buy, specially in era of making fake promises in the beginning.

The CPC seem to be encouraging open source, gitee (Chinese github) is run by the government.

Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#149
post #124
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm empathetic to this argument, but it feels like it's doing a disservice to the open source ethos in general. Pragmatic as china is, they may actually see the long term value of being open research leaders to short term profit. They are not as bound to immediate and constant growth as we are, their horizons do not change so dramatically every 4 years to say the least. Don't many respected developers care deeply abo…

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Re: DeepSeek Open Infra: Open-Sourcing 5 AI Repos in 5 Days

#150
post #140

In fact they are totally dismantling OpenAI. Most likely, without any intention on their part. LLMs have been more legitimate "blockchain" when most CIO magazines had these essays with "What's your blockchain strategy?" kind of stuffed material. AI bubble will burst and will burst hard. By end of 2026 at max.

I am not sure what you mean by AI bubble. Do you mean the valuation of some companies? Or course some won't do well in the future. In the meanty, a significant part of the population uses on it to accelerate their tasks (be it admin work, legal question, learning, getting inspiration). There is no way back. It feels like saying the video streaming bubble will burst in 2020. No. It is too valuable. But yes, some player will die. Nothing special here. IMHO.
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