Marc Andreessen proclaimed DeepSeek R1 as AI's Sputnik moment, likening it to the shock of the Soviet satellite launch. The Chinese startup’s chatbot matches top US AI models at significantly lower costs, raising alarms about American technological dominance. Following this, major companies like Nvidia faced historic stock declines amid fears China could reduce reliance on US chips. As DeepSeek’s app surged to top downloads in the US and UK, questions arose about the implications for geopolitical dynamics, US restrictions, and the militarization potential of AI technology.
Never mind that its answers on everything from the status of Taiwan to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were curbed by Chinese Communist party (CCP) censors.
Investors believed DeepSeek's achievement meant China would no longer need so many American chips; that US supremacy in AI was under threat or already over.
In the biggest week for AI since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, DeepSeek's app, with its jaunty blue whale logo, became the most downloaded free app on Apple's app stores in the US and UK.
What might it mean for control of a technology that many fear could be pressed into malicious use in cyber-attacks, the production of biological weapons and thought control?
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