Jan. 27, 2025

DeepSeek: The $6M AI That's Making Silicon Valley SWEAT

Show Notes
Transcript

How a $6M Chinese AI Just Crashed America's Trillion-Dollar Tech Party

Move over Silicon Valley - there's a new AI in town that just did with six million dollars what American tech giants are spending a trillion to achieve. Tonight, we're diving into how DeepSeek, a Chinese company you've never heard of, sent Nvidia's stock tumbling faster than a tech bro's Patagonia vest collection. Plus, Trump's plan to save American AI involves... checks notes... something called "Stargate." Seriously. And Colombia decides US military planes aren't so bad after all when coffee prices are on the line. Join Patrick Gutfield for a journey through the tech world's most expensive game of "keeping up with the Joneses" - except the Joneses are in Beijing and they're winning with pocket change.

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Caalaroga Shark Media.

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From Washington, DC, where although we use AI to help

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make this show, at least it's good old fashioned Yankee AI.

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This is ballot.

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That's right, we didn't tank the market. We've been using

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American AI for a year.

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Now. Your four oh one k.

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Should be thanking us by hitting follow on Apple podcasts.

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Let's hit this.

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Welcome to another night where American innovation means spending a

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trillion dollars to accomplish what China did with the money

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they found in their couch cushions. So there's this new

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AI company called deep Seek, which sounds like what my

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GPS does when I'm trying to find a Wendy's in

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New Jersey. They just created an AI that's apparently as

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good as chat GPT. But here's the kicker. They only

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spent six million dollars doing it. Six million. That's what

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Silicon Valley spends on kombucha in a week. Meanwhile, American

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tech companies are planning to spend one trillion dollars on AI.

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One trillion.

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That's like buying everyone in America a solid gold iPhone,

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but instead we're getting a chatbot that still can't tell

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you where to get good pizza in Chicago, and poor Nvidia.

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Their stock took a hit because apparently you don't need

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their fancy chips to make good AI. You just need

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whatever Deepseek used. But don't worry. Donald Trump has a solution.

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He's starting something called Stargate with open AI and Oracle,

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because when you think the future of technology, you definitely

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think Donald Trump and a company named after a sci

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fi show from nineteen ninety four. This whole thing is

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like when you spend three hundred dollars on a fancy

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coffee maker and then your neighbor makes better coffee with

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a sock and some hot water. Not that I'm bitter

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about that. Karen from Apartment three B, speaking of coffee, Columbia,

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just pulled the diplomatic equivalent of ordering a complicated coffee

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drink and then saying, actually, regular's fine. Petro started Sunday

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by making this bold stand against US deportation flights. He

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was going to protect Colombian dignity. He was going to

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send his own plane. He was going to match Trump's tariffs.

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This was his grande triple shot extra foam moment. Then

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Trump threatened to make Colombian coffee so expensive that Americans

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would have to start drinking whatever that brown water is

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they serve at car dealerships. And suddenly Columbia was like,

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you know what, the US military planes are fine, totally fine,

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whatever works for you. So here's the latest drama in

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our ongoing national who started COVID. The CIA just announced

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they think COVID probably came from a lab Leikue in China.

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But they're only saying this with low confidence, which is

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basically intelligence agency speak for this is our best guest,

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but don't quote us on it. This comes as we've

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got a whole new crew taking over our pandemic response team.

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John Ratcliffe just took over as CIA director and his

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first move was to.

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Make this report public.

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And speaking of changes, doctor Anthony Fauci, you know, America's

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pandemic dad, who spent two years telling us to mask up,

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just lost his government security detail at eighty four years old.

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This happened right as the new administration took over, even

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though he's still getting threats. The NIH also got a makeover,

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with Matthew Momolei taking over as interim director. Now Momoli

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is an interesting choice because during the height of the pandemic.

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He was actually pushing back against vaccine mandates.

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That's right.

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The new head of our nation's medical research institution was

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the guy saying, I think we're using these vaccines wrong.

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Nothing says Los Angeles quite like wildfires and housing prices

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that make you want to cry.

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Let me break this down for you.

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So Los Angeles just got hit with devastating wildfires that

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destroyed and homes, and wouldn't you know it, some landlords

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saw this tragedy and thought, what a great time to

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jack up the rent We're talking increases of up to

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one hundred and thirty percent in some areas. That's not

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just illegal, that's cartoonishly villainous. The law says you can't

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raise rents more than ten percent during an emergency, but

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these landlords are out here acting like that's a suggestion,

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kind of like how Los Angeles treat speed limits. One

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real estate agent even got charged for trying to squeeze

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an extra thirty eight percent out of a couple who

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lost their home. When a reporter called another agency to

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ask about their price hikes, they literally told them to

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jump in a lake.

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Really, professional, guys.

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The Attorney General's office is so swamped with complaints. They're

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handing out warning letters like parking tickets, over five hundred

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of them in just a few weeks. They've received more

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price gouging complaints than they got in the entire first

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year of the pandemic. Well, looks like some thieves in

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the Netherlands just pulled off history's.

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Most elaborate chicken coop. Heiced.

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You know a robbery's gone wrong when the stolen helmet

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has already lived its best life as a water dish

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for chickens. That's right, This two four hundred year old

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golden helmet was once used to hydrate some Dutch poultry.

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Talk about a downgrade from ancient Romanian royalty to things

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we found in old McDonald's yard. These thieves blew up

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a museum door at three forty five in the morning

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because apparently regular business hours just weren't convenient for their

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antiquities shopping. And get this, they stole a helmet that

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has two large eyes on the front.

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Two eyes.

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Even ancient Romanian helmets had better security systems than this museum.

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You've got to appreciate the historical irony here. The helmet

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survived two thousand, four hundred years, including being used as

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a child's toy and a chicken waterer, only to be

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stolen by some criminals who probably think archaeological masterpiece is

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a new flavor at Starbucks. And in true criminal mastermind fashion,

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they burned their getaway car, because nothing says professional art

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thief like leaving a flaming breadcrumb trail for the police

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to follow. The museum director called it a dark day,

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though I'd argue any day your priceless artifacts end up

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in the hands of people who think torching cars is

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a solid exit strategy is probably not your brightest. The

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police have called an Interpol, which spans one hundred and

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ninety six countries, because apparently, when you steal a helmet

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that's older than most countries, you need every country to

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help look for it, though personally i'd start checking local

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chicken farms. That helmet seems to have a history of

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ending up there. Also, there's no truth to the rumor

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that Trump wants to give these guys cabinet positions.

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Let me bring Laura in here to explain Deep Seek

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to us.

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Seventeen percent that's how much one Chinese AI app managed

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to wipe off in Vidia's trillion dollar market value in

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a single day. You know what's fascinating about this? The

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timing couldn't be more ironic, with all these new US

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export controls trying to limit China's access to advanced AI chips.

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Right, and here's where it gets really interesting. The Biden

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administration just rolled out these sweeping restrictions on GPU exports,

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and then deep seek shows up saying, hey, we don't

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even need your most advanced chips to compete.

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Though, we should probably address the elephant in the room.

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Those reports about censorship and content control within the app.

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Users have documented the app literally deleting responses about sensitive

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topics in real time. When asked about Tieneman Square, it

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gives this carefully worded response about being designed for helpful

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and harmless answers only.

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So what does this mean for the massive investments being

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made by US companies? I mean, Meta alone is planning

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to spend up to sixty five billion dollars on AI infrastructure.

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Well, that's where this gets complicated. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella

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argues that as AI becomes more efficient and accessible, overall

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usage will skyrocket. So even if individual operations become cheaper,

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the total market could be enormous.

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The market reaction seems pretty divided on this. The tech

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heavy Nasdaq dropped three percent, but the Dow actually gained

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zero point six percent. And look at how different tech

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leaders are responding. Mark Andreesen called it one of the

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most amazing breakthroughs, while others are warning about national security implications.

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The House Select Committee is already raising alarms about dangerous

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loopholes and export controls. Something tells me we'll be revisiting

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this topic as these competing approaches to AI development continue

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to evolve. That's it for today. I'm Patrick Gutfield. Hit

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follow on your podcast app. See you tomorrow.