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Click bait headline. Nothing was proven about open source as the future. "To gain a foothold in Western markets, DeepSeek had to open-source its models." This i

by danjl 2y ago

Click bait headline. Nothing was proven about open source as the future. "To gain a foothold in Western markets, DeepSeek had to open-source its models." This is an opinion, not the only solution. DeepSeek could have remained proprietary just as easily. The bias of the author becomes clear at the end when he starts to promote his own open source company. Everyone has an agenda.

checker659 2y ago
Who's going to invest in AI (building foundation models) if some other company can come and dethrone you in a snap?
- goosejuice 2y ago
  I guess we'll find out once someone gets dethroned. As far as I'm aware that hasn't happened.
- karamanolev 2y ago
  OpenAI invested in non-open foundation models and DeepSeek came and (approximately) dethroned them. I don't agree with the conclusion of the article, but the statement "open-sourcing a model lets another company dethrone you" is also not great. I'd stand behind "in the world of AI in 2024/2025, regardless of whether the model is open or not, someone is likely to come and dethrone you in a snap".
  - gs17 2y ago
    > DeepSeek came and (approximately) dethroned them The parenthetical should really be "(temporarily, approximately)". I wouldn't count OpenAI out until we see how o3 compares, assuming they actually make it available this week.
    - karamanolev 2y ago
      Oh, agree. The throne has a new king every day. Sometimes a past king, sometimes a brand new one. The temporary nature of it was implied.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  There is no throne, it’s a game of musical chairs.
- moduspol 2y ago
  Maybe "dethrone" isn't the right word, but if a startup on the other side of the world, without the best hardware, can create something comparable and cheaper to build/run just four months after the release of the top company's flagship model: I don't understand the OpenAI business model. I'm with you. How are they going to make money?
esnard 2y ago
To be fair, the article doesn't even contain the word "prove".
burrish 2y ago
Yep it's just an ad disguised as an article. Lot of them on the internet trying to help user with basics windows things, then they suggest their app as a better alternative.
- mbb70 2y ago
  Eh, it's not disguised as anything, it's content marketing. Lago the API billing solution is not suggesting their product as a better alternative to ChatGPT.
- noname120 2y ago
  Is the member who posted related in any way to Lago?
  - that_guy_iain 2y ago
    I'll almost certainly be Anh-Tho the CEO.
    - throwup238 2y ago
      I went looking for their team on the About Us page and instead found this: > 10x top of HN > Billing remains a major issue for companies, resonating widely. We've consistently hit HackerNews' top page over 10x. [1] [1] https://www.getlago.com/about-us https://www.getlago.com/about-us
      - that_guy_iain 2y ago
        To be fair, their ability to target HN is very good. I'm always impressed with their marketing. They put a good title that resonates with HN while the original title is something else for SEO.
      - noname120 2y ago
        Good thing that I flagged the post then (and sad thing that not enough people did for it to appear flagged)
nycdatasci 2y ago
They're raising capital.
jerf 2y ago
Steelmanning the idea in general, this can be a form of commoditizing your complement: https://gwern.net/complement https://gwern.net/complement Now, commercially, this may not make a lot of sense at the moment because no one is getting filthy rich on high-moat AI-using applications such that commoditizing the AI itself is a good idea commercially. I'm not sure anyone would even be confident enough to be the farm on the idea of someday being in that position. However, if you analyze this from the perspective of world politics, where both explicit and implicit strategies are based on what tech companies have what tech and where it is located, it makes a lot of sense that if China is concerned that the US really is ahead in AI tech and that US financial and technical dominance is being driven by this dominance and being used to suck capital out of the countries that are behind, it makes all kinds of sense to commoditize the complements as basically a way of throwing the current game board up in the air and restarting again. (One may also note that this analysis also says that just straight-up stealing the OpenAI tech and slightly AI-washing it before handing it out to everyone is also a logical move. I don't know enough to have any independent opinion as to whether that's where DeepSeek came from. I'm just saying that given the visible circumstances it is a strong strategic move for China at this point.)
- dleeftink 2y ago
  > from the perspective of world politics Much of this purported strategy hinges on 'winning' at all cost by undermining the lead. What is there to be won at the end? Does one party taking the reigns prevent the other from achieving similar capabilities? Is it necessary to win this race? Or is this a cumulative, distributed effort that benefits all of us?
  - jerf 2y ago
    Whether it's true or not, world leader's ears are being filled with the claim that whoever wins the AI race wins everything, because AI will be able to win every other contest. They're being told it is winner-take-all like no contest has been winner-take-all before.
    - jcgrillo 2y ago
sieabahlpark 2y ago
[dead]
tempeler 2y ago
I'm not sure it's planned or not. Finally, Chinese are generally proud of 4 great inventions. one of compass, another one of gonpower. Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization. So I don't know what kind of agenda they have. But I do know one thing: except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from. If it's cheap or free, they use it, and no one cares. No one apologizes to the US for losing monopolies.
- logicchains 2y ago
  >Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization They literally had emperors who banned all overseas travel because it represented a threat to their own power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin . China is the extremely large and extremely centralised, so the rulers' primary focus has always been on maintaining their own power. Fortunately the current government still allows private firms enough freedom that one was able to invent DeepSeek, however if the recent crackdown on financial firms had happened a few years earlier then the firm behind DeepSeek wouldn't have had the money to fund its creation.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization They did. Just as a land power. Modern China includes conquered territory of the Mongolians, Turkics and Tibeto-Burmans, among others [1]. (The proximate answer is the Ming-Qing transition [2] overlapped with the Age of Discocery [3].) > except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from This is breathtakingly wrong, as a simple perusal of every single country's trade restrictions would show. (Even if you're talking about the population versus policy, show me a market where no premium is paid for luxury products imported from such and such distant land.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China#/media/File:Ethnolinguistic_map_of_China_1983.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_from_Ming_to_Qing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_from_Ming_to_Qing [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery
Onavo 2y ago
His open source company is copyleft unlike DeepSeek, and the application domain is specifically designed such that no company would use his "open source" product.
taurknaut 2y ago
> Click bait headline. Nothing was proven about open source as the future. Well sure but generally speaking proofs about reality are an oxymoron, so who on earth was taking the headline at face value to begin with? This is a rhetorical technique referred to as "hyperbole".
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > generally speaking proofs about reality are an oxymoron Proofs about reality are not self contradicting. Something not being entirely correct doesn't an oxymoron make.
  - taurknaut 2y ago
    > Proofs about reality are not self contradicting. Absolutely they are! Proofs are a deductive concept with no basis in reality. This is basic Hume. All we can work with is inductive and abductive reasoning, neither of which is sufficient for a proof.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Proofs are a deductive concept with no basis in reality. This is basic Hume. One, it's not. Two, you're trying to use Hume to prove a statement that refutes itself. The claim that your can prove proofs oxymoronic is itself an oxymoron. Hume's critique of causation, moreover, has been amply supplanted since the 18th century. (Similar to Newton. In parts, it's been buttressed. In others, surpassed.) > All we can work with is inductive and abductive reasoning, neither of which is sufficient for a proof Mathematically false [1]. (And related to famous Gedankenexperiments, which prompted real science.) Of course, this whole thread is a farce: you're purposefully confusing mathematial proofs with the colloquial "proof." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction
      - taurknaut 2y ago
        > Mathematically false [1]. Ok, this has no bearing on our empirical reality.
zx10rse 2y ago
It was proven and it is the future.
dang 2y ago
Ok, we've changed the title above to be that of the article. (Submitted title was "DeepSeek proves the future of LLMs is open-source".)

by danjl 2y ago

checker659 2y ago

Who's going to invest in AI (building foundation models) if some other company can come and dethrone you in a snap?

goosejuice 2y ago
I guess we'll find out once someone gets dethroned. As far as I'm aware that hasn't happened.
karamanolev 2y ago
OpenAI invested in non-open foundation models and DeepSeek came and (approximately) dethroned them. I don't agree with the conclusion of the article, but the statement "open-sourcing a model lets another company dethrone you" is also not great. I'd stand behind "in the world of AI in 2024/2025, regardless of whether the model is open or not, someone is likely to come and dethrone you in a snap".
- gs17 2y ago
  > DeepSeek came and (approximately) dethroned them The parenthetical should really be "(temporarily, approximately)". I wouldn't count OpenAI out until we see how o3 compares, assuming they actually make it available this week.
  - karamanolev 2y ago
    Oh, agree. The throne has a new king every day. Sometimes a past king, sometimes a brand new one. The temporary nature of it was implied.
deadbabe 2y ago
There is no throne, it’s a game of musical chairs.
moduspol 2y ago
Maybe "dethrone" isn't the right word, but if a startup on the other side of the world, without the best hardware, can create something comparable and cheaper to build/run just four months after the release of the top company's flagship model: I don't understand the OpenAI business model. I'm with you. How are they going to make money?

esnard 2y ago

To be fair, the article doesn't even contain the word "prove".

burrish 2y ago

Yep it's just an ad disguised as an article. Lot of them on the internet trying to help user with basics windows things, then they suggest their app as a better alternative.

mbb70 2y ago
Eh, it's not disguised as anything, it's content marketing. Lago the API billing solution is not suggesting their product as a better alternative to ChatGPT.
noname120 2y ago
Is the member who posted related in any way to Lago?
- that_guy_iain 2y ago
  I'll almost certainly be Anh-Tho the CEO.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    I went looking for their team on the About Us page and instead found this: > 10x top of HN > Billing remains a major issue for companies, resonating widely. We've consistently hit HackerNews' top page over 10x. [1] [1] https://www.getlago.com/about-us https://www.getlago.com/about-us
    - that_guy_iain 2y ago
      To be fair, their ability to target HN is very good. I'm always impressed with their marketing. They put a good title that resonates with HN while the original title is something else for SEO.
    - noname120 2y ago
      Good thing that I flagged the post then (and sad thing that not enough people did for it to appear flagged)

nycdatasci 2y ago

They're raising capital.

jerf 2y ago

Steelmanning the idea in general, this can be a form of commoditizing your complement: https://gwern.net/complement https://gwern.net/complement Now, commercially, this may not make a lot of sense at the moment because no one is getting filthy rich on high-moat AI-using applications such that commoditizing the AI itself is a good idea commercially. I'm not sure anyone would even be confident enough to be the farm on the idea of someday being in that position. However, if you analyze this from the perspective of world politics, where both explicit and implicit strategies are based on what tech companies have what tech and where it is located, it makes a lot of sense that if China is concerned that the US really is ahead in AI tech and that US financial and technical dominance is being driven by this dominance and being used to suck capital out of the countries that are behind, it makes all kinds of sense to commoditize the complements as basically a way of throwing the current game board up in the air and restarting again. (One may also note that this analysis also says that just straight-up stealing the OpenAI tech and slightly AI-washing it before handing it out to everyone is also a logical move. I don't know enough to have any independent opinion as to whether that's where DeepSeek came from. I'm just saying that given the visible circumstances it is a strong strategic move for China at this point.)

dleeftink 2y ago
> from the perspective of world politics Much of this purported strategy hinges on 'winning' at all cost by undermining the lead. What is there to be won at the end? Does one party taking the reigns prevent the other from achieving similar capabilities? Is it necessary to win this race? Or is this a cumulative, distributed effort that benefits all of us?
- jerf 2y ago
  Whether it's true or not, world leader's ears are being filled with the claim that whoever wins the AI race wins everything, because AI will be able to win every other contest. They're being told it is winner-take-all like no contest has been winner-take-all before.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago

sieabahlpark 2y ago

[dead]

tempeler 2y ago

I'm not sure it's planned or not. Finally, Chinese are generally proud of 4 great inventions. one of compass, another one of gonpower. Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization. So I don't know what kind of agenda they have. But I do know one thing: except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from. If it's cheap or free, they use it, and no one cares. No one apologizes to the US for losing monopolies.

logicchains 2y ago
>Despite this, I still can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization They literally had emperors who banned all overseas travel because it represented a threat to their own power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin . China is the extremely large and extremely centralised, so the rulers' primary focus has always been on maintaining their own power. Fortunately the current government still allows private firms enough freedom that one was able to invent DeepSeek, however if the recent crackdown on financial firms had happened a few years earlier then the firm behind DeepSeek wouldn't have had the money to fund its creation.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> can't understand why they didn't think of starting geographical exploration and colonization They did. Just as a land power. Modern China includes conquered territory of the Mongolians, Turkics and Tibeto-Burmans, among others [1]. (The proximate answer is the Ming-Qing transition [2] overlapped with the Age of Discocery [3].) > except for China and the US, no one cares who the product comes from This is breathtakingly wrong, as a simple perusal of every single country's trade restrictions would show. (Even if you're talking about the population versus policy, show me a market where no premium is paid for luxury products imported from such and such distant land.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China#/media/File:Ethnolinguistic_map_of_China_1983.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_from_Ming_to_Qing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_from_Ming_to_Qing [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery

Onavo 2y ago

His open source company is copyleft unlike DeepSeek, and the application domain is specifically designed such that no company would use his "open source" product.

taurknaut 2y ago

> Click bait headline. Nothing was proven about open source as the future. Well sure but generally speaking proofs about reality are an oxymoron, so who on earth was taking the headline at face value to begin with? This is a rhetorical technique referred to as "hyperbole".

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> generally speaking proofs about reality are an oxymoron Proofs about reality are not self contradicting. Something not being entirely correct doesn't an oxymoron make.
- taurknaut 2y ago
  > Proofs about reality are not self contradicting. Absolutely they are! Proofs are a deductive concept with no basis in reality. This is basic Hume. All we can work with is inductive and abductive reasoning, neither of which is sufficient for a proof.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Proofs are a deductive concept with no basis in reality. This is basic Hume. One, it's not. Two, you're trying to use Hume to prove a statement that refutes itself. The claim that your can prove proofs oxymoronic is itself an oxymoron. Hume's critique of causation, moreover, has been amply supplanted since the 18th century. (Similar to Newton. In parts, it's been buttressed. In others, surpassed.) > All we can work with is inductive and abductive reasoning, neither of which is sufficient for a proof Mathematically false [1]. (And related to famous Gedankenexperiments, which prompted real science.) Of course, this whole thread is a farce: you're purposefully confusing mathematial proofs with the colloquial "proof." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction
    - taurknaut 2y ago
      > Mathematically false [1]. Ok, this has no bearing on our empirical reality.

zx10rse 2y ago

It was proven and it is the future.

dang 2y ago

Ok, we've changed the title above to be that of the article. (Submitted title was "DeepSeek proves the future of LLMs is open-source".)