Don't be tricked by DeepSeek AI – It's still not going to improve your life
The biggest tech story this week was the massive impact of Chinese AI firm DeepSeek. But is it more than just the next stage of the hype cycle?
I've spent the past couple of hours trying to avoid writing about DeepSeek, the Chinese AI chatbot that’s been dominating headlines this week. But with a short week thanks to the Australia Day public holiday and the kids finally back at school, I’ve run out of excuses. So, here we are: diving into the DeepSeek hype.
ICYMI: DeepSeek is an AI startup from China. It was founded back in 2023, developing open source Large Language Models (LLMs), like a Chinese ChatGPT. While it's had a few releases since it launched, it was the arrival of the DeepSeek-R1 model on January 20th that really kicked off the hype train.
The reason? It apparently cost less than US$6 million to develop, compared to OpenAI's GPT-4's cost of over US$100 million. Yet it delivers "results" on par with ChatGPT's GPT-4o model.
Not only is it cheaper, but it requires fewer resources to run, particularly compared to ChatGPT.
This realisation triggered a wave of investor panic, leading to a sell-off of big tech stocks. Companies that have been claiming AI growth requires enormous investment suddenly looked vulnerable to a scrappy upstart proving otherwise.
More than that, it’s ignited a flood of breathless AI think pieces, declaring the dawn of a new space race. But instead of putting humanity on the moon, this one is about AI. Overhyped, over-saturated AI.
Claims that China’s ability to create a cheaper—but no more trustworthy—AI chatbot signals a geopolitical shift seem like a stretch. The reality is that AI, in its current form, is just another buzzword being shoehorned into everything—a hype train designed to make the rich richer.
We've heard this tune before—first with crypto, then with NFTs. Each promised to revolutionise everything, yet mostly ended up enriching the same people. AI looks no different.
Despite the constant, breathless promises, does any of this actually make people’s lives better?
Nope. And it won't either.
This week on BTTR
Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
Nick Broughall
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