Fair and square: We are ahead of them again! The miracle with DeepSeek is starting to dissolve
The comrades from the People's Democratic Republic of China have presented a new invention to the world. Communist China shocked the world and stirred up a storm with a new artificial intelligence, even on the world's stock markets. DeepSeek is cheaper, made with fewer chips, its code is available open source and overall this invention confirms the words of Miroslav Donutil in his most famous role in the legendary film Pelíšky: "We are again one step, ahead of them!"
However, the initial awe of new technologies made of artificial material was soon replaced by disappointment. A stronger impact broke even the unbreakable glass from Poland, regardless of the fascinating shards and plastic spoons from the GDR could not handle contact with hot coffee.
Developing a highly advanced language model in the let's say backward conditions of contemporary China quite rightly caught the attention of the world. But our own experience with the communist regime and self-praising superlatives about its achievements suggest that everything might be a bit different under the lid.
DeepSeek as a relic of the old good communist fabrications
In real socialism, truth was a very relative concept. Communist propaganda, before 1989, for so long praised Czechoslovak industry as a world leader and the successes of collectivized agriculture that many people still believe this nonsense to this day.
However, they forget the reality that our supposedly world-class industry quickly went bankrupt in the 90s. It's strange that the money-hungry capitalists from the west, who could buy it cheaply and make a fortune on its technological sophistication, did not jump on this technological marvel. The socialist industry failed simply because it was not competitive with the better technologies of the West.
The famous self-sufficient agriculture had to be transformed as well. Nostalgics and agrobusiness barons who love state subsidies and protection from foreign competition still call for it, but it had its limits. No one was starving, but shelves were often empty and bananas and oranges simply cannot be grown in our latitudes, not to mention avocados, mangoes, or papayas.
It was customary to lie, but in 1989 in our country "truth and love triumphed over lies and hatred". However, in China, attempts at liberalization were bloody suppressed in Tiananmen Square and coincidentally, the most advanced Chinese artificial intelligence cannot say anything on this topic. It just starts to fog.
The cost of training DeepSeek was about 40 times lower than that of Western OpenAI, so they probably had to save a little bit somewhere. Or could it have been due to the unprecedented censorship of a totalitarian regime?
"Our analysis suggests that investors' concerns about a slowdown in AI spending are exaggerated and that the real cost of training this model could be around 2 billion dollars, which contradicts the stated figure of 5 million dollars. Although similar concerns have arisen in the past, we believe that the capital expenditure cycle for AI infrastructure is still in full swing,"
The investment website of Amundi company informs.
The Chinese used the method of scientific copying on DeepSeek
What do we learn? Could it be that the whole truth didn't reach us from the Far East? Just a few days ago, there was much talk about the collapse of the stock markets, currently led by technological giants like NVIDIA, Microsoft or Meta (these companies have been frequently mentioned in the context of artificial intelligence lately).
Moreover, we began receiving news reports that the Chinese probably stuck to their favorite scientific methodology, which is the theft of know-how. It's a shame that on the day of the DeepSeek presentation, betting offices did not offer this betting opportunity. I wanted to bet, even though the odds would probably be very low.
The Chinese have already "borrowed" Český Krumlov or the Škoda Octavia, so why not copy something worth while this time? The teacher used to say in school that copying is not allowed, but apparently during this lesson 1.4 billion Chinese were missing. At the end, another retrospective look into history. In 1949, the Soviet Union carried out its first atomic bomb test. The Americans were astounded.
The greatest credit for it was given by prof. Espionage, as the recent film megahit Oppenheimer nicely reminded us. However, this does not change the fact that Putin's Russia is still one of the two largest nuclear powers, and China can boast one of the most advanced technologies of today, behind which are thieving practices.
Sources: author's text, commentary, Financial Times, Amundi, The Guardian, Forbes
