[teractiveodular]

DeepSeek is basically a startup, not a "foreign nation-state backed organization". They were forced to pivot to AI when their original business model (quant hedge fund) was stomped on by the Chinese government.

Of course this is China so the government can and does intervene at will, but alleging that this required CIA level state espionage to pull off is alien crash levels of implausible. They open sourced the entire thing and published incredibly detailed papers on how they did it!

[kridsdale1]

You don’t need a CIA level agent to get someone with a fraudulent job at OpenAI for a few months, load some files on a thumb drive, and catch a plane to Shanghai.

[byteknight]

You may be unaware, but CCP has far more control over private companies than you might think: https://www.cna.org/our-media/indepth/2024/09/fused-together...

This is not America. Your ideas do not apply the same way.

[baq]

Naivety of some folks here is astounding… CCP has golden shares in anything that could possibly be important at some point in the next hundred years, and yes golden shares are either really that or they’re an euphemism, the point is it doesn’t even matter.

[DiogenesKynikos]

China has tens of millions of companies. The government can't, doesn't and isn't even interested in micromanaging all of them.

[baq]

It doesn’t have to micromanage. It doesn’t care about most. It is only interested in the politically important ones, but it needs the optionality if something becomes worthwhile.

[DiogenesKynikos]

You're suggesting that DeepSeek was a Chinese government operation that gained access to OpenAI's proprietary data, and then you're justifying that by saying that the government effectively controls every important company. You're even chiding people who don't believe this as naive.

I think you have a cartoonish view of China. A huge amount goes on that the government has no idea about. Now that DeepSeek has made a huge media splash, the Chinese government will certainly pay attention to them, but then again, so will the US government.

[baq]

I never suggested anything of the sort.

I’m suggesting it will be happening now and any past efforts will be retroactively analyzed by the appropriate CCP apparatus since everyone is aware of the scale of success as of Monday. It has become a political success, thus it is imperative the CCP partakes in it.

[byteknight]

You took a major leap. No one made any such argument.