There is just a trove of comments here, I was going to pick out the best, but honestly, there's something in here for everyone.
Ok here is the obvious stand-out:
Also, user KamalaHarrisWaifu has a lot of "takes" in the thread.
I actually have no idea to what extent the cost of Deepseek (or other Chinese models) are subsidized. One thing is true though, the grid these things exist on in China is owned by the state, and not privately owned, which I'm sure changes the calculus. (Not to mention the sheer capacity of said grid being off the charts).
I remember a bunch of people complaining about the shift from ChatGPT 4 to 5 and how 5 "lacked warmth" and "felt robotic." Comparing some of the responses (this is the only context in which I use ChatGPT), I actually found 5 to be much less obnoxious. It acted like a machine instead of a cloying manipulative sycophant.
I literally can't stand using western models partly because of this. They just deep throat it the whole conversation. Chinese models are much more likely to just do the task and shut it. The worst part is recent western models try to be quippy or talk like they're your buddy i guess? Like I've noticed some of them will now start responses with something along the lines of: "Oh, dang! That's a pretty interesting thing!" or like when I was showing Google Gemini an error log and asked it to pick out the errors I needed so I didn't have to read the whole thing it would be like "Look at that! We're so close to this thing working! 90% of the way there. Just one little thing needs fixed..." ugh, shut the fuck up. Do what I asked machine. Why do they insist on making it talk like that? It's gross.
They wanted a cloying manipulative sycophant
I want my robots to feel robotic