# DeepSeek Mania Shakes AI Industry to Its Core

Source: https://www.404media.co/deepseek-mania-shakes-ai-industry-to-its-core
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/DeepSeek-Mania-Shakes-AI-Industry-to-Its-Core?index=0x6797dba17013a0f79c399e097299cf50aa326ea8d4898b13087c042b5eb814cdf1d94464
Submitted by misha on 2025-01-27 UTC, 1 upvote, 1 comment

## Summary

DeepSeek's release of its R1 model has sparked widespread alarm across the AI industry and financial markets. The Chinese-developed model reportedly outperforms OpenAI's and other companies' models on some benchmarks, despite being trained on older chips at a much lower cost, and it became the most popular app in the US Apple App Store. Nvidia's stock has tumbled, and Marc Andreessen called the model "AI's Sputnik moment." Because DeepSeek is free, modifiable and cheaper to run, experts are worried about the viability of OpenAI's already unprofitable subscription products.

## Article

DeepSeek, a relatively unknown Chinese-developed AI model, is now the most popular app in the US Apple App Store based on hype associated with it releasing an an AI model that outpaces OpenAI’s and other companies’ models on some benchmarks while being trained on older chips at a much lower cost. It has caused Nvidia stock, which has become one of the most valuable companies in history thanks to the AI boom, to tumble and is causing more widespread panic in the U.S. market. Marc Andreessen has called this “AI’s Sputnik moment,” referring to the first Russian satellite which got ahead of and accelerated the US space program.

People in the AI space and those who follow it closely started freaking out when DeepSeek’s newest model, DeepSeek R1, was released last week, and that freakout has now seemingly captured the entire world, impacting the stock market, causing people to wonder if American companies like OpenAI and Nvidia can really dominate the AI industry, if the AI bubble is finally popping, and if this is a sign of imminent Chinese world domination and censorship. DeepSeek is particularly notable because it is free, modifiable, and less expensive to run, which has experts worried about the viability of OpenAI’s already unprofitable subscription products.

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## Comments

**misha**: > Fair enough, I suppose, but as the developers of “uncensored” AI models have been shouting from the rooftops since the beginning: any AI model that the user can’t control entirely is subject to censorship. OpenAI is a prude, and will refuse to engage users on a lot of topics, sometimes for reasons stated in OpenAI’s policy, and sometimes for reasons we’ll never understand because OpenAI is a black box.

> “Why should the open-source AI running on my computer, get to decide for itself when it wants to answer my question? This is about ownership and control. If I ask my model a question, I want an answer, I do not want it arguing with me,” Eric Hartford, a developer of uncensored AI models, told me last year. 

> If anything, DeepSeek maps a better AI future for those concerned about censorship because it was released as an “open weights” model, meaning people could modify it to talk about Tiananmen Square and whatever else they want.