The launch last month of DeepSeek R1, the Chinese generative AI or chatbot, created mayhem in the tech world, with stocks plummeting and much chatter about the US losing its supremacy in AI technology.
Last month, Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the driving force behind the current generative AI boom, similarly claimed to be “confident we know how to build AGI” and that “in 2025, we may see the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’”.
Silicon Valley has nurtured the image of AI technology as a precious and miraculous accomplishment, and portrayed its leading figures, from Elon Musk to Sam Altman, as prophets guiding us into a new world.
According to NewsGuard, a rating system for news and information websites, DeepSeek’s chatbot made false claims 30% of the time and gave no answers to 53% of questions, compared with 40% and 22% respectively for the 10 leading chatbots in NewsGuard’s most recent audit.
While AI technology has provided hugely important tools, capable of surpassing humans in specific fields, from the solving of mathematical problems to the recognition of disease patterns, the business model depends on hype.
