Live data from Hacker News

DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

simonwillison.net

171–180 of 420 posts

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#171
post #113

The biggest differentiator for me: DeepSeek just does what I ask. I've tried using both GPT and Claude for reverse engineering recently, both refused. I even got a warning on my OpenAI account.

Are you kidding? Ask this question and see what answer you get: What famous photo depicts a man standing in front of a line of tanks?

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you given GLM 5.1 or Kimi K2.6 a shot for coding? They outperform Deepseek v4 pro.

Glm5.1 is fantastic for me. But that could be how I use it, I don't ask it to build entire apps or entire features, instead asking it to build piecemeal functionality. For that it compares very well to chatgpt 5.4 (I haven't extensively tried 5.5, it might be better, might be same). I have given deepseekv4 pro a try but not much more than a try, as it performed subpar on 4 tasks in a row (missing the obvious/intended…

I've never asked LLMs to build a whole app without detailed directions. I've done giving it a general data flow, structs and methods..etc

Are frontier models capable of building something only with general directions now?

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#174
post #113

The biggest differentiator for me: DeepSeek just does what I ask. I've tried using both GPT and Claude for reverse engineering recently, both refused. I even got a warning on my OpenAI account.

> I even got a warning on my OpenAI account. This is kind of terrifying to me, regularly. No real manner of recourse to normal people without a following, potential exclusion from real fundamental tooling. Imagine OpenAI goes on to buy 20 companies and now you cant use Figma, Next, whatever just because you once tripped some very foggy line somehow. Not just OpenAI but the entire ecosystem is so... hard to read. I wa…

>Imagine OpenAI goes on to buy 20 companies and now you cant use Figma, Next, whatever just because you once tripped some very foggy line somehow.

Don't worry, you can just make your own Figma, Next, whatever if you have some thousand dollars worth of tokens. This is at least what all of the AI thought leaders have been telling me for the past couple of years.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#175
post #113

The biggest differentiator for me: DeepSeek just does what I ask. I've tried using both GPT and Claude for reverse engineering recently, both refused. I even got a warning on my OpenAI account.

Silicon Valley has do to dirty tricks now. Next phase is they win....

"A Dark-Money Campaign Is Paying Influencers to Frame Chinese AI as a Threat" - https://www.wired.com/story/super-pac-backed-by-openai-and-p...

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably worried about liability. Let's say that Oracle finds out you reverse engineered their DB using Gemini. You can be sure they will sue Google. Not just for providing the tools, but you could make the argument that it's actually Gemini doing the reverse engineering, and on Google's hardware no less.

Let's say that Oracle finds out you reverse engineered their DB using IDA Pro. Would you expect Oracle to sue Hex Rays? I don't understand why everything changes as soon as an LLM is involved. An LLM is just software.

The difference is IDA Pro doesn’t do something unless you instruct it to, an LLM is unpredictable and may end up performing an action you did not intend. I see it often, it presents me options and does wait for my response, just starts doing what it thinks I want.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#177
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an enterprise cursor account so I can try all the mainstream models. Using composer 2 on our own code which I obviously have the source code for I couldn't get it to turn on a debug flag to bypass license checks while I was troubleshooting something. Infuriating. It was like that old Patrick from SpongeBob meme. I don't understand why we would turn the models into law enforcement officers. Things that are ill…

They're probably worried about liability. Let's say that Oracle finds out you reverse engineered their DB using Gemini. You can be sure they will sue Google. Not just for providing the tools, but you could make the argument that it's actually Gemini doing the reverse engineering, and on Google's hardware no less.

We need that lawsuit to happen already so we can establish precedent. The person in the driver's seat of the Tesla should be at fault. The engineer using the llm should be at fault. The person behind the gun not the manufacturer should be at fault.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say that Oracle finds out you reverse engineered their DB using IDA Pro. Would you expect Oracle to sue Hex Rays? I don't understand why everything changes as soon as an LLM is involved. An LLM is just software.

If they thought they would succeed, no doubt oracle would sue. I expect bad behavior from multinationals, especially oracle

They would not even expect it to succeed, just make an example of the company (the lawsuit is the punishment) to discourage others.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#179

The credit for DeepSeek, in part, goes to US companies such as OpenAI [1] and DeepSeek [2]. Portions of DeepSeek are based on their products. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/openai-accuses-deepseek-... [2] https://x.com/AnthropicAI/status/2025997928242811253

And the credit of OpenAI is to Google?

https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#180
I've connected it with my vscode copilot and took it for a ride. I've tried both flash and pro. For a small POC flash was sufficient enough, quite fast, and dirt cheap. It did stop a few times (maybe latency issue?) but it did a good job. I used the pro to do some heavy lifting, planning, etc. and it did a fantastic job. I paid ~10 cents for a small proof of concept, that worked exactly how I prompted it.

For me, this is a real alternative after I cancel my github copilot towards the end of the month..

Post reply on HN