So, OpenAI’s got their panties in a bunch. Seems a Chinese outfit called DeepSeek, the new kid on the AI block, might have been playing a little fast and loose with OpenAI’s precious code. Now, I’m no lawyer, but I’ve spent enough time in bars to know a thing or two about hypocrisy, and this whole situation stinks of it worse than a three-day-old ashtray.
These OpenAI guys, led by their fearless leader Sam Altman, are crying foul because DeepSeek might have trained their AI models on the output of OpenAI’s models. You know, the same OpenAI that’s been vacuuming up every scrap of data on the internet – every poem, every novel, every blog post (even this one, probably) – to feed their own digital beast. They call it “fair use.” I call it a digital book burning, only instead of ashes, you get a chatbot that can write a mediocre sonnet on demand.
And here’s the punchline: DeepSeek comes along, allegedly does the same thing to OpenAI, and suddenly it’s a crime against humanity. Or at least, a crime against Silicon Valley’s bottom line. DeepSeek’s R1 model is apparently giving OpenAI’s best a run for its money, and it’s doing it for a fraction of the cost. Blew a trillion bucks off the market in a day. That’s gotta hurt. Reminds me of that time I tried to pay my rent with lottery tickets. Didn’t go over so well.
The internet, bless its twisted little heart, is having a field day with this. “OpenAI, the company built on stealing literally the entire internet, is crying because DeepSeek may have trained on the outputs from ChatGPT,” one guy wrote. Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s like a pickpocket complaining that someone lifted his wallet. Irony, thy name is Altman.
And get this – despite having the word “open” in their name, OpenAI is about as transparent as a brick wall. They keep their code locked up tighter than Fort Knox. DeepSeek, on the other hand? Open source, baby. They’re practically giving it away. It’s like the Robin Hood of AI, only instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, they’re stealing from the rich and giving it to… everyone.
Now, I’m not saying DeepSeek is a saint. They might have broken OpenAI’s terms of service. But let’s be honest, those terms of service are probably longer and more complicated than a Russian novel. And who’s to say OpenAI didn’t do the same thing to YouTube, the New York Times, and every other poor sap who ever put their work online?
Altman, meanwhile, is out there beating the war drums, promising “much better models” than DeepSeek. But instead of focusing on, you know, making their product more efficient, he’s just doubling down on “more compute.” It’s like trying to win a race by strapping another engine to your car instead of learning how to drive better. Or, to put it in terms I understand, it’s like trying to cure a hangover by drinking more whiskey. It might work in the short term, but it’s not exactly a sustainable strategy.
This whole thing is a beautiful mess. It’s a reminder that the AI world is still the Wild West, full of outlaws and snake oil salesmen. And the only thing they love more than making money is pretending they’re changing the world. They’re not, of course. They’re just building machines that can regurgitate information in a slightly more sophisticated way. Which, I guess, is better than what I do most days.
And here’s the best part: while these tech giants are busy squabbling over who stole what from whom, the rest of us are just trying to figure out how to pay the bills and maybe, just maybe, find a little meaning in this increasingly absurd world.
We’re the ones they’re trying to replace, you know? The writers, the artists, the thinkers. The ones who can still feel, who can still bleed, who can still find beauty in the chaos. They can build all the machines they want, but they’ll never be able to replicate that. They’ll never be able to capture the spark of human creativity, the messy, unpredictable, glorious mess that makes us who we are.
They can have their algorithms and their data centers. I’ll take a smoky bar, a bottle of cheap whiskey, and a good story any day. And if that makes me a dinosaur, so be it. At least I’ll go down swinging.
Or maybe I’ll just go down to the bar. It’s Thursday, after all. Cheers.