Is it ironic that OpenAI says DeepSeek used its work without permission?

Sam Altman’s job is to convince wealthy people to give him astronomical amounts of money. Him saying that DS “stole” their model is his explanation for why those investments were not wasted in the past. It doesn’t say anything about future investment though.

I personally am hoping this will be a moment of reckoning for the tech industry in the US and we will learn from it. American exceptionalism is holding us back.

Is it ironic that we have a free open-source model (that also shares reasoning chain) from a hedge fund and $200/mo model from a non-profit?

Hypocrisy is a better word than irony

Not really, but there's basically no path of recourse for OpenAI no matter how you frame it. They could accuse DeepSeek of sanctions violation or IP theft, but nobody in China is going to prosecute them.

I don't even think DeepSeek is that big of a deal, but it's pretty clear that this is a diversion on OpenAI's behalf to try and emphasize their own importance. Their desperation is humiliating enough, the irony almost doesn't even register relative to the myriad other ways OpenAI has disappointed and betrayed American customers.

No. Irony is when something is the opposite of what is expected. This is exactly what everybody expected so it is, in fact, the polar opposite of ironic.

China has lax copyright and patent laws. A lot of piracy is done in China.

It's PR. As I see it, most likely a manufactured narrative. Matches the Trump, Bannon, ElonX, Right Wing x Conservatives strategies/pattern run in the US and Europe. All some part of BlackRock et al.

Don't let it distract you at all, it'll get into your own subtext and if you are not trying hard to monetize off their sides/game, you'll end up making financial/investment mistakes (if applicable) or spreading misinformation or impeding proper information flow.

There's good money and ground to be made acting against them, which won't "turn the tides" but it can make it a good bit harder for them which would help them evolve a bit. For now, they are unfit for the role they aspire to. So if you can, sparr with them without mercy and help them grow into it.