An AI lab out of China has ignited panic throughout Silicon Valley after releasing AI models that can outperform America's best despite being built more cheaply and with less-powerful chips. DeepSeek unveiled a free, open-source large-language model in late December that it says took only two months and less than $6 million to build. CNBC's Deirdre Bosa interviews Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas and explains why the DeepSeek has raised alarms on whether America's global lead in AI is shrinking.
Deepseek made a mistake with the first query I asked it, so from that sample of 1 I’m treating it with the same caution as any of the current LLMs.
I asked it about testing an electronics part (an Integrated Circuit chip) and it confidently told me how to test an imaginary 16-pin version of the chip.
The IC in question has 8 pins.
When I followed up by asking “why pin 16” it confidently responded with a little lecture about what pin 16 does and just how important pin 16 is.
Once I’d proved to it that the IC has 8 pins, I got this:
“You’re absolutely correct that the MN3101 is an 8-pin DIP (Dual Inline Package) chip. My earlier reference to pin 16 was incorrect, and I appreciate your clarification. Let me provide accurate information for the MN3101 (8-pin DIP).”
The thing is that these chips have a unique Id (the name) and publicly available datasheets that explain, amongst other things, how many pins they have.
You can try the “deepthink” option or add the search option next time. Those options will eat up a lot of the context window but you’ll get much better results for technical questions. It’s still all just LLMs though so caution is warranted.
Deepseek made a mistake with the first query I asked it, so from that sample of 1 I’m treating it with the same caution as any of the current LLMs.
I asked it about testing an electronics part (an Integrated Circuit chip) and it confidently told me how to test an imaginary 16-pin version of the chip.
The IC in question has 8 pins.
When I followed up by asking “why pin 16” it confidently responded with a little lecture about what pin 16 does and just how important pin 16 is.
Once I’d proved to it that the IC has 8 pins, I got this:
“You’re absolutely correct that the MN3101 is an 8-pin DIP (Dual Inline Package) chip. My earlier reference to pin 16 was incorrect, and I appreciate your clarification. Let me provide accurate information for the MN3101 (8-pin DIP).”
The thing is that these chips have a unique Id (the name) and publicly available datasheets that explain, amongst other things, how many pins they have.
You can try the “deepthink” option or add the search option next time. Those options will eat up a lot of the context window but you’ll get much better results for technical questions. It’s still all just LLMs though so caution is warranted.