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DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

simonwillison.net

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Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#181

Post by mark_l_watson »

yogthos wrote: post #132
wg0 wrote: post #9

Deepseek v4 Pro feels like Claude Opus 4.6 in it's personality but here's what I did find out about costs: I did cut loose Deepseek v4 on a decent sized Typescript codebase and asked it to only focus on a single endpoint and go in depth on it layer by layer (API, DTOs, service, database models) and form a complete picture of types involved and introduced and ensure no adhoc types are being introduced. It developed a…

I find a lot of the inefficiency also comes from the model just randomly poking around and grepping all the time which is the fault of the harness. I ended up building a Prolog based MCP where I use tree-sitter to parse the code into a graph, and then the model can just ask questions like 'what are all the functions connected to this function'. So, in case you're trying to focus on what a particular endpoint is doing…

Chiasmus Looks very cool. I might have a use for it because I like to use LLM harnesses to explore code. Thanks.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#182

Post by wolttam »

DS V4 Pro has rocked. ~250 million tokens through their API, which has cost me about $10, and some of that was at the non-discount rate. So ~$40 at the non-discount rate. I have yet to have a single request feel slow or get rejected.

I've used K2.6, GLM5.1, and DSV4 all a good amount. They're all very impressive, but DSV4 has taken the cake.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#183

Post by rao-v »

grassfedgeek wrote: post #173

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

Is there real evidence that the volume was meaningful for distillation vs say extensive benchmarking and testing?

It’s certain all the labs use each others APIs extensively for testing - what’s the actual evidence that Deepseek was at significantly higher scale etc.?

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#184

Post by enraged_camel »

cedws wrote: 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.

I was using GPT 5.5 through Cursor recently, and it found what it thought to be a security-related issue. I read the code, didn't see what it was seeing, and said "Run the chain of operations against my local server and provide proof of the exploit."

It thought for a few seconds, then I got a message in the chat window UI saying OpenAI flagged the request as unsafe, and suggested I use a "safer prompt."

Definitely soured me on the model. Whatever guardrails they are putting are too hamfisted and stupid.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#185

Post by kouteiheika »

grassfedgeek wrote: post #171
cedws wrote: 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?

Are you kidding?

The main difference here is not that DeepSeek's model is completely free of censorship (although I'd wager it's less censored), but that it's open-weight. That has two major advantages:

1) If Anthropic/OpenAI/Google bans you - you're screwed, you can't access their model at all, but if DeepSeek bans - you just go to another provider, or host the model yourself.

2) If the model refuses to answer you can uncensor it (and this is getting easier and more automated day-by-day[1]).

[1] -- https://github.com/p-e-w/heretic

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#186

Post by [deleted] »

sunnybeetroot wrote: post #176
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #159

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.

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.

[deleted]

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#187

Post by yogthos »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #181
yogthos wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find a lot of the inefficiency also comes from the model just randomly poking around and grepping all the time which is the fault of the harness. I ended up building a Prolog based MCP where I use tree-sitter to parse the code into a graph, and then the model can just ask questions like 'what are all the functions connected to this function'. So, in case you're trying to focus on what a particular endpoint is doing…

Chiasmus Looks very cool. I might have a use for it because I like to use LLM harnesses to explore code. Thanks.

Awesome, and feel free to open issues if you find anything missing that would be useful.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#188

Post by well_ackshually »

grassfedgeek wrote: post #173

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

Aw man, I'm going to shed a tear, the poor AI companies that stole books, works of art, writings any anything they could get their grubby hands on while happily telling everyone that their jobs are over by the exabyte are getting their precious little tokens stolen by big evil chinese LLMs :(

It's morally right to fuck over Anthropic (and OpenAI, or any other lab). Works generated by AI are not copyrightable anyways, and their terms of service have zero legal value.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#189

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gordonhart wrote: post #154
sanex wrote: 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…

> I don't understand why we would turn the models into law enforcement officers It's a simple corporate risk minimization strategy. Just look at how universally despised Grok is on HN. Not because it's a bad model, but because it has less aggressive alignment which means it can be coaxed into saying things that get Xai pilloried here and elsewhere.

I just think Grok is a bad model. I haven't had success with it.

Re: DeepSeek V4 – almost on the frontier

#190

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

grassfedgeek wrote: post #173

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

How immoral of those LLM developers. The rest of the field does such a good job of crediting their inputs.
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