Understanding DeepSeek's AI Breakthrough: 5 Videos to Get You Up to Speed!

With the seismic impact of DeepSeek on AI, the stock market, and geopolitics, we wanted to follow-up our previous post with a deeper exploration of the topic. In this post, we found 5 videos that will help you get up to speed on the unfolding drama.  

Vid1: CNBC Covers the Ensuing Market Meltdown

CNBC discusses the impact of China's new AI model, DeepSeek, on the global tech industry. DeepSeek's superior efficiency and performance, even surpassing some American models, is causing a major sell-off in AI-related stocks, particularly impacting companies like Nvidia. The video explores concerns about DeepSeek's potential access to advanced technology and the implications for US technological dominance. The discussion also touches upon the shift towards open-source AI models and the uncertainty surrounding future investments in AI development. Finally, the video highlights the rapid advancement of AI technology and its potential societal impact, comparing the situation to the Sputnik moment of the space race.

Vid2: AI Enthusiast, Matt Wolfe, Gives His Take

Matt Wolfe, who closely follows the AI space, discusses DeepSeek R1, a new Chinese open-source AI model that has caused significant market reactions. DeepSeek's impressive performance, achieved with significantly less computing power than comparable models like GPT-4, is attributed to its efficient training methods and innovative design. Controversy surrounds DeepSeek's claims regarding its resource usage, with some suggesting the company downplayed the actual computational resources employed. Despite this, the video argues the model's impact may be positive, possibly lowering the barrier to entry for AI development and increasing overall demand for GPUs. The video also covers DeepSeek's image generation model, Janice Pro 7B, and provides instructions on how to access and utilize DeepSeek.

Vid3: A Geopolitical Perspective on the DeepSeek Saga

Here is Cold Fusion’s take on the DeepSeek story. He discusses the sudden emergence of DeepSeek R1, a free, open-source Chinese AI model that rivals—and in some ways surpasses—leading American AI models. Its unexpectedly low development cost and superior efficiency have sent shockwaves through the US stock market and prompted a reassessment of AI development strategies. Concerns about intellectual property theft are raised, alongside geopolitical implications of this technological advancement. The narrative explores the innovative techniques behind DeepSeek R1's performance and the competitive landscape it has created, highlighting the resulting cost reductions and potential for rapid AI progress globally.

Vid4: If you are using DeepSeek, Your Data is Going to China!

Skill Leap AI discusses serious privacy concerns regarding the DeepSeek website and app, highlighting issues like vague data retention policies, data storage in China raising compliance issues with international laws, lack of transparency in data usage, and insufficient age verification. The creator outlines these issues after reviewing the platform's privacy policy and terms of service using ChatGPT. To mitigate these risks, the video suggests using locally installed versions of DeepSeek R1 or utilizing DeepSeek's integration within the PerplexityAI search engine, a US-based service. Finally, the video promises a future comparison of DeepSeek R1 and ChatGPT's 01 model.

Vid5: A Video Walkthrough of Dario Amodei's take on DeepSeek's Capabilities

In this video, Matt Berman takes a look at Dario Amodei's take on the DeepSeek saga. Amodei, the current CEO of OpenAI’s chief rival Anthropic, wrote an essay discussing the implications of DeepSeek's AI model, R1, particularly concerning its potential data acquisition from OpenAI and the resulting impact on the AI industry and geopolitical landscape. The essay analyzes the three key dynamics of AI development: scaling laws, the shifting curve, and paradigm shifts, emphasizing the escalating costs and exponential advancements in AI capabilities. Concerns about China's access to advanced GPUs and their potential to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) are also highlighted, underscoring the importance of export controls. Finally, the essay argues that DeepSeek's cost-effective model, while impressive, does not represent a fundamental shift in AI economics and that the market's overreaction was unwarranted.

Author: Malik Datardina, CPA, CA, CISA. Malik works at Auvenir as a Sr. AI Product Manager who is working to transform the engagement experience for accounting firms and their clients. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent UWCISA, UW, Auvenir (or its affiliates), CPA Canada or anyone else. This post was written with the assistance of an AI language model. The model provided suggestions and completions to help me write, but the final content and opinions are my own.

The Dilemma of Zlibrary: Empowering Students or Enabling Piracy?

As the year 2022 came to a close, a significant event occurred that may have gone unnoticed by many. The famous online repository of ebooks and articles, Z-library, was shut down. This event serves as a reminder of how too much attention can have negative consequences. In this blog post, we will delve deeper into the story of Zlibrary and the issues surrounding shadow libraries, intellectual property rights, and access to knowledge.

 

The Impact of Digitized Info: The Rise of Z-library

Z-library is an online repository of ebooks and articles that provides free access to information and knowledge. The site started in 2009 and has since grown to be one of the largest shadow libraries on the internet. According to Fast Company:

"Z-Library offered more than 10 million ebooks and 86 million articles at its peak, with a limited number of monthly downloads accessible to millions of users free of charge, and more available for a small fee."

Many people around the world rely on such resources as they may need access to the expensive subscription-based services that are often required to access academic articles and books. Proponents of websites like Zlibrary, Sci-Hub, and Libgen argue that they strive to break down barriers to knowledge and education, enabling users to access the information they need to learn and grow.

The TikTok Effect on Zlibrary: More Popularity, More Problems

The rising popularity of Z-library, however, attracted the scrutiny of copyright holders and legal authorities, putting both the site and its users in a vulnerable position. The increased attention also raised legal questions about using such a resource.

 According to TorrentFreak, Z-library has emerged as a vastly popular, high-volume source of illegal ebook downloads in recent years. The site's growth can be attributed to users who openly advertise the site on social media, with TikTok playing a significant role in its popularity. The hashtag #zlibrary on the popular social media platform has 4 million views, with countless videos posted by college and high school students and others across the world promoting it as the go-to place for free ebooks.

However, the attention that Zlibrary received on TikTok was a double-edged sword. While it certainly helped spread the word about the site, it also brought more attention to its illegal activities. This attracted the attention of copyright holders and legal authorities, namely the FBI.

Starving Students vs Starving Artists: Who really benefits from the closure of Z-library?

According to the Washington Post, the FBI has charged two Russian nationals, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova, with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering for operating Z-Library. The authorities took down the website on November 4th and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, stated that the defendants profited illegally by uploading works within hours of publication and victimized authors, publishers, and booksellers in the process.

The Washington Post also noted how authors and users had a clash of opinions. Users were mourning the loss of their ability to download free textbooks, novels, and academic papers. However, authors were relieved by the shutdown as they argued that piracy harms their sales and the publishing industry and that mourning Z-library is mourning the end of theft.

But is this really a debate between starving students and starving artists? Not really.

According to a report by Citigroup obtained by Rolling Stone, in the music industry's digital streaming era, the people who make the most money from copyrighted content like books or music are not the artist/author, but the holder of the copyright. They take nearly 90% of the money.

The story of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the authors of the original Superman comic book, highlights the unfortunate reality that creators of copyrighted content may not always receive fair compensation for their work. Despite the immense success and wealth generated by Superman and the concept of superheroes, the inventors only received a small sum of $130 for signing over the rights to their creation to D.C. Comics. This has led to ongoing legal battles, with the families of the inventors seeking their fair share of the fortune generated by the invention. Of course, the copyright holders won.

The Z-library Takedown: Can we just dismiss the concern of students?  

One tweet succinctly summed up the students' feelings, stating "The closure of Zlibrary is like the burning of the Library of Alexandria in our time." This tweet draws parallels between the loss of this online library and the historical burning of the Library of Alexandria during the reign of Julius Caesar.

Burning Z-Library: Rendered by Stable Diffusion 2.1

Can we just dismiss this as students being overly emotional? Well, it's more complicated than that.

As noted in the Huntington News, a 2014 study found that the average cost of a college textbook is about $105, which is difficult to justify for most college students. In the same study, 65% of college students said they didn't purchase their required textbooks even though they knew it could hurt their grade.

The burden of student debt is heavy for many young people in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, the total amount of student loans owed to the federal government reached a staggering $22.3 billion in 2020. And this figure doesn't even consider provincial and personal loans, lines of credit and education-related credit-card debt. On average, a Canadian student graduating with a bachelor's degree holds $28,000 in student loan debt, while college grads hold $15,300 in debt. In the U.S., the situation is similarly dire. For 2023, the total amount of student loan debt (including federal and private loans) has reached $1.75 trillion. The average student borrower holds $28,950 in debt.

The situation in Canada and the U.S. has a wide-reaching social impact, as this debt load can make it difficult for young people to start their careers, buy homes, or even save for retirement. It is clear that the cost of education is a growing concern not just for students but for society as a whole.

Consequently, the Z-library debate must be connected to the economic reality that students face, such as the rising costs of education, high levels of student debt, and a lack of affordable access to educational resources. It highlights how the students' anger at the site's shutdown is a part of a broader crisis they face. It is essential to understand this context when discussing the issues surrounding shadow libraries and intellectual property rights.

Digital Tech: Innovation and the Struggle for a Knowledge Society

The Z-library debate highlights how intellectual property can be an obstacle to creating a knowledge society. From a technological standpoint, the ability to digitize text, information, and knowledge can revolutionize access to information and education. However, as demonstrated by Zlibrary, the economic realities of the publishing industry and the protection of intellectual property rights often stand in the way of this potential. Technology has advanced, but the economics have not evolved to keep pace, resulting in the same exploitative dynamics seen in other industries such as music and comics. To truly create a knowledge society, we must re-examine how intellectual property laws and systems can be adapted to enable access to information and knowledge for all rather than just protecting the profits of a select few.

Author: Malik Datardina, CPA, CA, CISA. Malik works at Auvenir as a GRC Strategist that is working to transform the engagement experience for accounting firms and their clients. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent UWCISA, UW, Auvenir (or its affiliates), CPA Canada or anyone else.