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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 lo
by deyiao 2y ago
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.
- SequoiaHope 2y agoWell, 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 field. It can also be genuine. When you’re new you don’t have much to lose and it’s easier to be truly altruistic.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- sapphicsnail 2y agoI don't really understand this. Why should I be more concerned about the propaganda some country on the other side of the world is spreading than the propaganda my own government is spreading? Why should me or anyone else in the cross hairs of the federal government rn care?
- nprateem 2y agoI don't buy the propaganda angle, but why bother hacking when companies will happily upload their sensitive data to you.
- lvturner 2y agoBut they've given enough for you to cut their servers entirely out of the loop...
- FooBarWidget 2y agoYou know DeepSeek is open source and can be self-hosted, right?
- nprateem 2y agoYeah but by default most people will just use the hosted one
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- YeahThisIsMe 2y agoBecause the country on the other side of the world benefits from yours losing stability and influence.
- ein0p 2y ago[flagged]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y ago"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- tw1984 2y ago[flagged]
- suraci 2y ago[flagged]
- deyiao 2y agoFrom what I know, DeepSeek is a small company that made a lot of money from other businesses, which makes their lack of focus on commercial interests feel more genuine. Plus, even back when they were relatively unknown, they had a habit of donating over $100 million annually to charitable causes. That makes their claim of striving for humanity a lot more believable.
- vineyardmike 2y ago> DeepSeek is a small company that made a lot of money from other businesses, which makes their lack of focus on commercial interests feel more genuine. Google also made a lot of money from other businesses that aren't AI models, until they started selling AI models, just as DeepSeek now does. The reality is that DeepSeek is a full company, that was funded as a spin-off from the original business (a hedge fund that used its large GPU stockpile to pick stocks via ML). The company DeepSeek is owned by the hedge fund CEO not the hedge fund. It exists as a business aiming to make money, not as a pet project for another business.
- deyiao 2y agoBut the fact that they were donating huge sums every year even when they were still unknown really says something. If they were purely profit-driven, there’s no way the shareholders would have allowed that.
- anticensor 2y ago[flagged]
- Szpadel 2y agomy intuition suggests that because they are not the leaders, they will not stay in news for long. This way you stay on mouth of people for longer period and by publishing code you hurt established giants by allowing much smaller players to compete.
- tw1984 2y agoThey are already the absolute leader in China, which is arguably the largest market for future AI. Liang doesn't have any media exposure because he is an engineer and doesn't want that, if he wants or needs to "stay in news", he can get tons anytime anywhere.
- petesergeant 2y agoMy intuition suggests they will very shortly have state-level resources thrown at them to mean they become a consistent leader. This and Qwen have been huge for China’s prestige and whatever the Chinese for Juche is. Those is unambiguously the next space race, and there’s absolutely no reason China can’t pull ahead of the US here.
- suraci 2y agowhy you have thought like this? it's not how it works in China The Chinese government only supports companies that are in line with industrial policies and are facing difficulties that require assistance. This is because such companies struggle to obtain financing from the society. The aim is to support the entire industry, not a specific company. If a company holds a leading position, it does not need to receive any "resources" from the government; it can acquire sufficient resources from the society. China 10y bond yield is at <2%, this is a very low financing cost.
- petesergeant 2y ago> The Chinese government only supports companies that are in line with industrial policies and are facing difficulties that require assistance So, like, for example, AI companies who are very upfront about not being able to get their hands on as many chips as they'd like?
- seattleeng 2y agoliterally how openai attracted talent with deepmind as the boogeyman. its a playbook that works
- PeterStuer 2y agoWhy not for now just applaud them for their actions rather than focus on some potential 3rd order plan? Who knows what any of then might do in the future? For now I'm cheering for Deepseek, Meta and anyone publishing open models as I strongly believe that the potential "danger" of AI in the hands of everyone is far outstripped by the concrete dangers of AI dictated by a select small group of corps/gov symbionts.
- brookst 2y agoI agree with your sentiment, but there’s no harm in being aware that the rhetoric is just PR spin for the strategy the execs think will be the most profitable.
- SXX 2y agoAt least they are not founded as non-profit with some "greater good" mission or "safety" BS.
- actionfromafar 2y agoYeah, that would be too blatant. :) Can't fool me twice. Not yet, wait a couple of years.
- SequoiaHope 2y agoI wouldn’t go so far as to try to presume the state of mind of the execs. Maybe they really believe what they’re saying. But it’s also true that it benefits them to say it and my argument is simply that we should be mindful of that.
- _Algernon_ 2y agoBecause we have seen this play out exactly as described so many times that that kind of naivety is not justifiable.
- SequoiaHope 2y agoThe answer lies in the question I responded to. The commenter lauded the positive effects of Deepseek’s actions and lamented the loss of such positivity from OpenAI. But it’s important to understand that this didn’t happen by chance. These things happen because underdogs benefit more from goodwill than secrecy and selfishness, while established players benefit from dominance and control. If we ignore that, we will let PR teams play us every time they claim altruism while serving themselves. It doesn’t mean Deepseek can’t also have good motives, but we must be clear that undercutting OpenAI while simultaneously building community goodwill is a smart move on their part to shift the market in their favor.
- ashu1461 2y agoTrue, in the end you are not sure if companies like meta / deepseek are promoting opensource because they genuinely care or it is just a differentiated marketing strategy to win over the developers. Some companies will play on opensource, some will play on pricing, some on quality. Almost all of the open source companies which do good eventually start an enterprise / paid division as well.
- zx10rse 2y agoThere 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...
- RobotToaster 2y agoEven 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.
- stared 2y agoYes, 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.
- quantum_state 2y agoWell said + Thanks!
- torginus 2y agoI 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.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y agoRather than a foundation for their products, I think they're just trying to make it impossible for new competitors to enter that market because if when all the biggest models are open-sourced, a new player can't convince investors to bring billions on the table as there's nothing to monetize – the alternative is free. Why enter the market now when AI is already commoditized? DeepSeek is making US investors regrets investing so much to get a tiny lead over them, but they're also making future, large investments much harder to justify when you can rely on existing open-sourced models
- herval 2y agothat's a good thing, no? Foundation Models aren't defensible. It'll force VCs to allocate on other stuff (the new buzz is "the application layer")
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y agoOpen-source does very little good if no one actually contribute to the code except the company who controls it and no one else has the means to participate (other than taking the code as-it-is). The giant players are more than happy to keep their models open if no one even tries to compete. "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." ~~ Goethe
- sharmajai 2y agoI get the urge to be cynical all the time, but this isn't that time. "Once you grow", they have already grown and competing with the SoTA models and still giving it all back to the community. I just wish this smear campaign against them stops sometime soon.
- unraveller 2y agoRich nations see risk, rising giants see leverage.
- baq 2y agoThey just stopped pretending.
- thenoblesunfish 2y agoHow will their mindset not be exploited (even, given time and power, by the exact same now-honest idealists) in the same way as the other people and companies you mention? It's a hard pill to swallow but especially after I read "The Power Broker" it's very true that some of the most inspiring idealists really do turn into amoral pragmatists.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoPower does terrible things to people, we really need to stop letting that happen.
- RobotToaster 2y ago"Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." - Frank Herbert
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI don't think there's a lot of historical precedent for the kind of power that is possible today, logistics used to be a limiting factor. Maybe you can be god king of the universe as your day job and enjoy a bit of sanity on your time off--but then again maybe not. We're in uncharted waters.
- seydor 2y agoWe are making the world a better place more than our competitors
- tuyguntn 2y agoyou forgot to add "/sarcasm"
- maxlin 2y agoSaying that Musk "doesn't have the mindset" for betterment of humanity is just ignorant in a very short-sighted way. Sure, he currently has a side project of fixing the US government and ensuring US doesn't stray too far outside of its core interests, but SpaceX and Tesla are still his bread and butter he has spent most of his time on beside this scenic route. I've followed him closely since ~2016 so I can say this with some conviction. He's exactly the same guy he was back then. He even talks of the exact same things with the same excitement. Sure, "American boots on MARS!" instead of just "boots on Mars" like he did after the inauguration, but it's quite clear he has seen US falling apart as a existential risk for the more lofty goals especially SpaceX has for Humanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wubITdJ_MCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wubITdJ_MCw
- xinuc 2y agoThere was a time when I was this naive, but it's surely a very long time ago
- maxlin 2y agoCongratulations you're just naive to things that are easier to believe for a weak mind now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Arkhaine_kupo 2y ago> I've followed him closely since ~2016 so I can say this with some conviction. Its sad that you fell for it then. Read Phillip Long's post on him, not someone who follows him but someone who has worked with him for years. It should be eye opening in the kind of man he is. There will be no Mars terraforming, his goal is being the worlds first trillionaire. The emperor has no clothes, the companies run despite him not because of him and the cult of personality only appeals to people who somehow still fall for it.
- 2y ago
- suyash 2y agoOpenAI is the biggest irony, it's not even bothered with national interests, it's on a pure profit maximising goal without regard to anything else.
- suyash 2y agoAnd 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.
- RobotToaster 2y agoThe CPC seem to be encouraging open source, gitee (Chinese github) is run by the government.
- suyash 2y agoMore of a reason to stay away from that, think about it why does Gov run open source website, answer : so they can control what software is made and what it can do on the free web.
- samirillian 2y agoIt’s greed not national interests unless you know something I don’t about greedy people.
- barrenko 2y agoIt's just an Nvidia short, so they can get the yuuge amount of graphic cards they need for further training even cheaper (joke).
- huijzer 2y agoDon’t forget Google who typically make their best AI products available only to large customers. For “safety” of course.
- teekert 2y agoIsn't Musk still on the open side? Isn't that what the whole Musk - Altman conflict is about?
- skripp 2y agoMaybe. We’ll see if he open sources grok 2 or if he just want others to open source their models and weights.
- teekert 2y agoI don't think it's justified to say that, he can do Grok anyway he wants, he never promised -or make it his mission- to open it up. It's a different story for "Open"AI.
- axus 2y agoTo me it's notable that Chinese government didn't care (or know) about this going open source.
- spacebanana7 2y agoI suspect the Chinese government fears being locked into US SaaS much more than the loss of control from open source. After all censorship can still be enforced at the level of App Stores / DNS for most consumers even with open source models.
- breck 2y ago[dead]
- icepat 2y agoStriving for the betterment of humanity, or striving for their peer technology competitor to have their intellectual property moat atom-bombed? I don't think altruism has any real role in this.
- mgfist 2y agoReally it just shows the beauty of market competition.