DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress • Hacker News Board

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#21

Post by tazjin » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #16

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Honestly, AI progress suffers because of these export restrictions. An open source model that can compete with Gemini Pro 2.5 and o3 is good for the world, and good for AI

Your views on this question are going to differ a lot depending on the probability you assign to a conflict with China in the next five years. I feel like that number should be offered up for scrutiny before a discussion on the cost vs benefits of export controls even starts.

> depending on the probability you assign to a conflict with China in the next five years

And on who you would support in such a conflict! ;)

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#22

Post by Davidzheng » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

ngruhn wrote: post #13

teruakohatu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Releasing the model has paid off handsomely with name recognition and making a significant geopolitical and cultural statement. But will they keep releasing the weights or do an OpenAI and come up with a reason they can't release them anymore? At the end of the day, even if they release the weights, they probably want to make money and leverage the brand by hosting the model API and the consumer mobile app.

If they continue to release the weights + detailed reports what they did, I seriously don't understand why. I mean it's cool. I just don't understand why. It's such a cut throat environment where every little bit of moat counts. I don't think they're naive. I think I'm naive.

I don't think any of these companies are aiming at long term goal of making money from inference pricing of customers.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#23

Post by chvid » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #8

teruakohatu wrote: post #3

The title of the article is "DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress" but the body of the article says launch stalled because there is a lack of GPU capacity due to export restrictions, not because a lack of progress. The body does not even mention the word "progress". I can't imagine demand would be greater for R2 than for R1 unless it was a major leap ahead. Maybe R2 is going to be a larger/less perform…

The article says this: >June 26 (Reuters) - Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has not yet determined the timing of the release of its R2 model as CEO Liang Wenfeng is not satisfied with its performance, >Over the past several months, DeepSeek's engineers have been working to refine R2 until Liang gives the green light for release, according to The Information. But yes, it is strange how the majority of the article is about…

I am pretty sure that the information has no access to / sources at Deepseek. At most they are basing their article on selective random internet chatter amongst those who follow Chinese ai.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#24

Post by viraptor » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

nsoonhui wrote: post #12

qwertox wrote: post #9

"We had difficulties accessing OpenAI, our data provider." /s

Not too sure why you are downvoted but OpenAI did announce that they are investigating on the Deepseek (mis)use of their outputs, and that they were tightening up the validation of those who use the API access, presumably to prevent the misuse. To me that does seem like a reasonable speculation, though unproven.

Exactly because it's phrased like the poster knows this is the reason. I wouldn't downvote it if it was a clear speculation with the link to the OAI announcement you mentioned for bonus points.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#25

Post by diggan » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:51 AM UTC

Davidzheng wrote: post #22

ngruhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they continue to release the weights + detailed reports what they did, I seriously don't understand why. I mean it's cool. I just don't understand why. It's such a cut throat environment where every little bit of moat counts. I don't think they're naive. I think I'm naive.

I don't think any of these companies are aiming at long term goal of making money from inference pricing of customers.

> I don't think any of these companies are aiming at long term goal of making money from inference pricing of customers.

What is DeepSeek aiming for if not that, which is currently the only thing they offer that cost money? They claim their own inference endpoints has a cost profit margin of 545%, which might be true or not, but the very fact that they mentioned this at all seems to indicate it is of some importance to them and others.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#26

Post by diggan » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:52 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #20

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point the only models I use are o3/o3-pro and R1-0528. The OpenAI model is better at handling data and drawing inferences, whereas the DeepSeek model is better at handling text as a thing in itself -- i.e. for all writing and editing tasks. With this combo, I have no reason to use Claude/Gemini for anything. People don't realize how good the new Deepseek model is.

My experience with R1-0528 for python code generation was awful. But I was using a context length of 100k tokens, so that might be why. It scores decently in the lmarena code leaderboard, where context length is short.

Would love to see the system/user prompts involved, if possible.

Personally I get it to write the same code I'd produce, which obviously I think is OK code, but seems other's experience differs a lot from my own so curious to understand why. I've iterated a lot on my system prompt so could be as easy as that.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#27

Post by xdennis » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:52 AM UTC

nsoonhui wrote: post #12

qwertox wrote: post #9

"We had difficulties accessing OpenAI, our data provider." /s

Not too sure why you are downvoted but OpenAI did announce that they are investigating on the Deepseek (mis)use of their outputs, and that they were tightening up the validation of those who use the API access, presumably to prevent the misuse. To me that does seem like a reasonable speculation, though unproven.

I still find it amusing to call it "misuse". No AI company has ever asked for permission to train.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#28

Post by diggan » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:55 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #16

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Honestly, AI progress suffers because of these export restrictions. An open source model that can compete with Gemini Pro 2.5 and o3 is good for the world, and good for AI

Your views on this question are going to differ a lot depending on the probability you assign to a conflict with China in the next five years. I feel like that number should be offered up for scrutiny before a discussion on the cost vs benefits of export controls even starts.

> probability you assign to a conflict with China in the next five years. I feel like that number should be offered up for scrutiny before a discussion

Might as well talk about the probability of a conflict with South Africa, China might not be the best country to live in nor be country that takes care of its own citizens the best, but they seem non-violent towards other sovereign nations (so far), although of course there is a lot of posturing. But from the current "world powers", they seem to be the least violent.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#29

Post by layer8 » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:57 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #16

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Honestly, AI progress suffers because of these export restrictions. An open source model that can compete with Gemini Pro 2.5 and o3 is good for the world, and good for AI

Your views on this question are going to differ a lot depending on the probability you assign to a conflict with China in the next five years. I feel like that number should be offered up for scrutiny before a discussion on the cost vs benefits of export controls even starts.

Are you saying that large-model capabilities would make a substantial difference in a military conflict within the next five years? Because we aren’t seeing any signs of that in, say, the Ukraine war.

Re: DeepSeek R2 launch stalled as CEO balks at progress

#30

Post by KronisLV » Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 10:01 AM UTC

I wonder how different things would be if the CPU and GPU supply chain was more distributed globally: if we were at a point where we'd have models (edit: of hardware, my bad on the wording) developed and produced in the EU, as well as other parts of the world.

Maybe then we wouldn't be beholden to Nvidia's whims (sour spot in regards to buying their cards and the costs of those, vs what Intel is trying to do with their Pro cards but inevitably worse software support, as well as import costs), or those of a particular government. I wonder if we'll ever live in such a world.