Why DeepSeek’s new AI model thinks it’s ChatGPT
Earlier this week, DeepSeek, a well-funded Chinese AI lab, released an “open” AI model that beats many rivals on popular benchmarks. The model, DeepSeek V3, is large but efficient, handling text-based tasks like coding and writing essays with ease.
Posts on X — and TechCrunch’s own tests — show that DeepSeek V3 identifies itself as ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot platform. Asked to elaborate, DeepSeek V3 insists it is a version of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model released in 2023.
This actually reproduces as of today. In 5 out of 8 generations, DeepSeekV3 claims to be ChatGPT (v4), while claiming to be DeepSeekV3 only 3 times.
The delusions run deep. If you ask DeepSeek V3 a question about DeepSeek’s API, it’ll give you instructions on how to use OpenAI’s API. DeepSeek V3 even tells some of the same jokes as GPT-4 — down to the punchlines.
Models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek V3 are statistical systems. Trained on billions of examples, they learn patterns in those examples to make predictions — like how “to whom” in an email typically precedes “it may concern.”
