China Smart, US Dumb: The Deepseek Interview

January 6, 2025

This is an official dinobaby post. I used AI to assist me in this AI. In fact, I used the ChatGPT system which seems to be the benchmark against which China’s AI race leader measures itself. This suggests that Deepseek has a bit of a second-place mentality, a bit of jealousy, and possibly a signal of inferiority, doesn’t it?

“Deepseek: The Quiet Giant Leading China’s AI Race” is a good example of what the Middle Kingdom is revealing about smart software. The 5,000 word essay became available as a Happy New Year’s message to the US. Like the girl repairing broken generators without fancy tools, the message is clear to me: 2025 is going to be different.

Here’s an abstract of the “interview” generated by a US smart software system. I would have used Deepseek, but I don’t have access to it. I used the ChatGPT service which Deepseek has surpassed to create the paragraph below. Make sure the summary is in line with the ChinaTalk original and read the 5,000 word original and do some comparisons.

Deepseek, a Chinese AI startup, has emerged as an innovator in the AI industry, surpassing OpenAI’s o1 model with its R1 model on reasoning benchmarks. Backed entirely by High-Flyer, a top Chinese quantitative hedge fund, Deepseek focuses on foundational AI research, eschewing commercialization and emphasizing open-source development. The company has disrupted the AI market with breakthroughs like the multi-head latent attention and sparse mixture-of-experts architectures, which significantly reduce inference and computational costs, sparking a price war among Chinese AI developers. Liang Wenfeng, Deepseek CEO, aims to achieve artificial general intelligence through innovation rather than imitation, challenging the common perception that Chinese companies prioritize commercialization over technological breakthroughs. Wenfeng’s background in AI and engineering has fostered a bottom-up, curiosity-driven research culture, enabling the team to develop transformative models. Deepseek Version 2 delivers unparalleled cost efficiency, prompting major tech giants to reduce their API prices. Deepseek’s commitment to innovation extends to its organizational approach, leveraging young, local talent and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration without rigid hierarchies. The company’s open-source ethos and focus on advancing the global AI ecosystem set it apart from other large-model startups. Despite industry skepticism about China’s capacity for original innovation, Deepseek is reshaping the narrative, positioning itself as a catalyst for technological advancement. Liang’s vision highlights the importance of confidence, long-term investment in foundational research, and societal support for hardcore innovation. As Deepseek continues to refine its AGI roadmap, focusing on areas like mathematics, multimodality, and natural language, it exemplifies the transformative potential of prioritizing innovation over short-term profit.

I left the largely unsupported assertions in this summary. I also retained the repeated emphasis on innovation, originality, and local talent. With the aid of smart software, I was able to retain the essence of the content marketing propaganda piece’s 5,000 words.

You may disagree with my viewpoint. That’s okay. Let me annoy you further by offering several observations:

The release of this PR piece coincides with additional information about China’s infiltration of the US telephone network and the directed cyber attack on the US Treasury.
The multi-pronged content marketing / propaganda flow about China’s “local talent” is a major theme of these PR efforts. From the humble brilliant girl repairing equipment with primitive tools because she is a “genius” to the notion that China’s young “local talent” have gone beyond what the “imported” talent in the US has been able to achieve are two pronged. One tine of the conceptual pitchfork is that the US is stupid. The other tine is that China just works better, smarter, faster, and cheaper.
The messaging is largely accomplished using free or low cost US developed systems and methods. This is definitely surfing on other people’s knowledge waves.

Net net: Mr. Putin is annoyed that the European Union wants to block Russia-generated messaging about the “special action.” The US is less concerned about China’s propaganda attacks. The New Year will be interesting, but I have lived through enough “interesting times” to do much more than write blogs posts from my outpost in rural Kentucky. What about you, gentle reader? China smart, US dumb: Which is it?

Stephen E Arnold, January 6, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, Business strategy, cybersecurity, Government, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.