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Comment by quantadev | Hacker News Reader

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So, ChatGPT/Gemini's free version is stealing the users from European AI companies, and the goal is to harm them? Or we call that just a competition?

I think there's a legitimate argument to be made that ChatGPT and Gemini's free versions constitute unfair (and potentially even illegal) predatory pricing. They aren't even charging the price of the inference compute, which has got to make it much much harder for competing businesses to survive.

I.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing / https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

That's a false equivalence. There's more nuance than that. Both OpenAI and Google have a genuine private-sector business model, whereas my claim is that DeepSeek is totally a China Gov't entity.

> is totally a China Gov't entity

Honestly, I don't know. I feel like if any better model came out from literally any AI lab in China, people would say literally exactly the same thing. Some Chinese companies are pouring billions in similar AI stuff as we're doing in the West. DeepSeek also creating problems for those companies as well. I would even go as far as saying, all those "illegal GPUs" are probably in hands of Tencent, Baidu, Huawei and other big boys, rather than DS team. But again, just conjectures here.

My hunch is that DeepSeek is lying about creating their AI using just a few outdated chips and a $6mn budget. And when I heard DeepSeek was providing basically free and unlimited AI inference services that also made me think it's gotta be funded by their Gov't (China), because no private sector company can afford that.

Why is it an interesting distinction whether a product is privately funded vs tax payer funded? To me it sounds like sour grapes.

From China's perspective, undercutting American AI companies using Gov't funds is a great strategy for them. Whether you like it or not sort of depends on which side you're on.

how much of their funding came from the chinese government?

let's not try to split hairs.

Funny that's basically how "growth" companies work in general

American "growth" companies aren't 100% funded by the USA Gov't with the only goal being to damage foreign national private sector companies. American companies are private sector only and have a business model that's to benefit a company, not a nation. In China all companies function as part of their National Party.

> American companies are private sector only and have a business model that's to benefit a company, not a nation.

How can you believe that when copyright laws only applied when regular people pirate but not when big tech uses pirates content to it train their AI? Also it's known that Pentagon funded many tech companies during cold war https://qz.com/the-pentagon-is-spending-billions-on-big-tech... . Is this not government funding?

What I meant was that in America the Gov't doesn't get to dictate the actions and policies of private sector companies, whereas in Communist China their Gov't absolutely does control the private sector, and has it's tentacles deep into every important industry.

Regarding letting AIs train on copyrighted material, which is a separate issue, I do think that will and should remain legal. For example if an AI can learn to paint in the style of Picasso, that's a skill, not a theft. Same is true of an AI that can learn to write "in the style of" Hemingway, for example.

"It's funded by China Gov't"

Are there any credible sources of information out there to back that up, or is that just a conspiracy theory?

It is strictly a conspiracy theory at this point.

I bet you think the phrase "ByteDance is China Gov't" is a conspiracy theory too.

wow I just asked deep "is taiwan independent from china?" and then the same question to claude. Very different.

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