DeepSeek Arrives at an Awkward Time, But it’s Still Amazing

Sunday, January 26, 2025

If you haven’t tried DeepSeek yet, go do it right now. The app, which is a Chinese-owned AI tool designed to compete with the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, Llama and Grok, has rocketed to the top of the App Store charts recently and for good reason. DeepSeek is special, not for its user interface or general experience, but because it shows you how it “thinks.” The company trained its model differently; frankly, I don’t fully understand how, but I trust that they did so in a way that makes it better than many other open-source models. While DeepSeek is rising to prominence at an awkward time, look no further than the TikTok divestment situation; it is well worth a try. At this point, I am still using ChatGPT as my primary AI tool. But being able to watch DeepSeek think through a request and show you exactly how it got its output is extraordinary. Oh, and the best part? It’s completely free, yet it rivals the best premium models from other companies. If you don’t want to use DeepSeek directly for privacy or censorship-related reasons, you can also do so locally on your Mac using Ollama or on iOS using the latest TestFlight beta of Fullmoon from Mainframe.