[deyiao]

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]

Well, 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.

[torginus]

I 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.

[PeterStuer]

Why 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.

[deyiao]

From 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.

[stared]

Yes, 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.

[ashu1461]

True, 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.

[sharmajai]

I 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.

[Szpadel]

my 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.

[zx10rse]

There 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...

[seattleeng]

literally how openai attracted talent with deepmind as the boogeyman. its a playbook that works

[__MatrixMan__]

Power does terrible things to people, we really need to stop letting that happen.

[RobotToaster]

"Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible." - Frank Herbert

[unraveller]

Rich nations see risk, rising giants see leverage.

[baq]

They just stopped pretending.

[icepat]

Striving 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]

Really it just shows the beauty of market competition.

[thenoblesunfish]

How 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.

[samirillian]

It’s greed not national interests unless you know something I don’t about greedy people.

[suyash]

OpenAI 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.

[barrenko]

It's just an Nvidia short, so they can get the yuuge amount of graphic cards they need for further training even cheaper (joke).

[huijzer]

Don’t forget Google who typically make their best AI products available only to large customers. For “safety” of course.

[axus]

To me it's notable that Chinese government didn't care (or know) about this going open source.

[spacebanana7]

I 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.

[seydor]

We are making the world a better place more than our competitors

[tuyguntn]

you forgot to add "/sarcasm"

[suyash]

And 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]

The CPC seem to be encouraging open source, gitee (Chinese github) is run by the government.

[teekert]

Isn't Musk still on the open side? Isn't that what the whole Musk - Altman conflict is about?

[skripp]

Maybe. We’ll see if he open sources grok 2 or if he just want others to open source their models and weights.

[maxlin]

Saying 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

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> 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.

[ProcNetDev]

Look past what he says and into what is actually happening.

He is actively helping take health care from poor people. He is firing thousands of people with families, mortgages and medical bills without cause. He is closing our national parks. All so he can personally have a tax cut.

His ex-wife is frantically posting for him to help with the healthcare of their own son in his replies. He can't even manage his family I don't think he has the betterment of humanity on his mind.

[xinuc]

There was a time when I was this naive, but it's surely a very long time ago

[_joel]

I think you've been drinking the koolaid too much. He's only in it to enrich himself and his cronies. There's a reason he's on course to become a trillionaire and it ain't because of altruism.

[yard2010]

He is not fixing anything, he is just a human, the kind with flaws, that thinks he isn't.

[regularjack]

"Fixing" the US government