DeepSeek-R1 (China’s Open Source Reasoning Model) Officially Rivals OpenAI’s o1

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🤖 AI

Cisco Introduces AI Defense Solutions – Cisco unveils a suite of AI-driven security products designed to enhance threat detection and response capabilities. [Cisco]

Balancing AI Safety and Speed – Cisco emphasizes the importance of prioritizing AI safety alongside rapid development to ensure responsible innovation. [Cisco Blogs]

OpenAI and Meta Collaborate on AI Superagent – OpenAI and Meta are partnering to develop an AI superagent capable of performing complex tasks across various domains. [Axios]

Perplexity Acquires Read.cv – AI startup Perplexity has acquired Read.cv, a professional social media platform, to integrate AI-driven features for enhanced networking. [TechCrunch]

🦾 Emerging Tech

Trump Launches Meme Coin Ahead of White House Return – Former President Donald Trump introduces a cryptocurrency called $TRUMP, which quickly becomes one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies, reaching a fully diluted value of over $72 billion. [The Wall Street Journal]

Melania Trump Introduces $MELANIA Coin – Following her husband's venture, Melania Trump launches her own cryptocurrency, $MELANIA, impacting the value of $TRUMP and highlighting the volatility of meme coins. [Axios]

UBTech Partners with Foxconn to Revolutionize Manufacturing – Chinese robotics firm UBTech collaborates with Apple supplier Foxconn to deploy humanoid robots in factories, aiming to enhance production efficiency. [South China Morning Post]

🤳 Social Media

Instagram Offers Cash Bonuses to Attract TikTok Creators – In a bid to lure content creators from TikTok, Instagram is providing substantial financial incentives for exclusive Reels content. [The Information]

Instagram Launches New Video Editing App – Instagram introduces 'Edits,' a video editing app similar to CapCut, offering advanced tools for creating short-form videos. [Engadget]

Instagram Updates Profile Grid with Vertical Thumbnails – To align with user preferences, Instagram modifies profile grids to display posts as vertical rectangles, enhancing visual appeal. [Social Media Today]

🔬 Research

Teen Usage of ChatGPT for Schoolwork Doubles – A Pew Research Center study reveals that 26% of U.S. teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork, doubling from 13% in 2023. [Pew Research Center]

⚖ Legal

Trump Signs Executive Order to Delay TikTok Ban – President Donald Trump issues an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve to negotiate terms and avoid a U.S. ban. [The Information]

Trump Proposes Joint Venture to Save TikTok – To address national security concerns, Trump suggests a joint venture giving the U.S. a 50% ownership stake in TikTok. [The Information]

🎱 Random

Trump Calls for 'Revolution of Common Sense' in Inaugural Address – In his inaugural speech, President Donald Trump condemns the "radical and corrupt establishment" and outlines an ambitious agenda aimed at revitalizing the country. [The Wall Street Journal]

🔌 Plug-Into-This

Open-source DeepSeek-R1 uses pure reinforcement learning to match OpenAI o1 — at 95% less cost

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has unveiled DeepSeek-R1, an open-source reasoning language model that rivals OpenAI's o1 in performance across mathematics, coding, and reasoning tasks, while being 90-95% more cost-effective.

• DeepSeek-R1 is built upon the DeepSeek V3 mixture-of-experts model, utilizing a combination of reinforcement learning (RL) and supervised fine-tuning to enhance its reasoning capabilities.

• Benchmark tests show DeepSeek-R1 scoring 79.8% on the 2024 American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), 97.3% on MATH-500, and achieving a 2,029 rating on Codeforces, outperforming 96.3% of human programmers.

• In terms of general knowledge, DeepSeek-R1 attained 90.8% accuracy on the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) benchmark, closely trailing OpenAI's o1, which scored 91.8%.

• DeepSeek has open-sourced DeepSeek-R1 and its distilled models on Hugging Face under an MIT license, promoting accessibility and further development within the AI community.

🚀 DeepSeek’s hot pursuit of OpenAI continues and they seem to be closing ground significantly in what appears to be the new primary focus for OpenAI’s public facing models — reasoning. Not a good sign for OpenAI in terms of maintaining competitive advantage.

Trump Revokes Biden's AI Executive Order

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions," which included the revocation of Executive Order 14110, previously issued by President Joe Biden on October 30, 2023.

• Executive Order 14110, known as the "Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence," was a comprehensive directive aimed at governing the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the United States.

• The order outlined policy goals to promote competition in the AI industry, prevent AI-enabled threats to civil liberties and national security, and ensure U.S. global competitiveness in the AI field.

• It mandated major federal agencies to establish dedicated "chief artificial intelligence officer" positions to oversee AI initiatives and compliance within their respective organizations.

• The revocation of this order signifies a shift in the federal government's approach to AI regulation, potentially reducing oversight and altering the trajectory of AI development and governance in the country.

• Critics express concern that this action may lead to insufficient safeguards against the misuse of AI technologies, while proponents argue it could foster innovation by lessening regulatory constraints.

🔄 It’s a move that’s not surprising given Trump’s general adherence to the underlying Republican philosophy of shrinking the federal government and favoring private sector through looser regulations. Still, we should expect some regulation to come through — likely with the input of many of the tech executives we saw present at the inauguration.

TikTok Comes Back Online, Trump Stalls Ban 75 Days

On January 19, 2025, TikTok resumed services in the United States after a temporary shutdown due to a federal ban. The restoration followed President-elect Donald Trump's announcement of an impending executive order to delay the ban, providing TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, additional time to find an approved U.S. buyer.

• The federal ban, effective January 19, required ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations of TikTok, citing national security concerns over data privacy and potential influence by the Chinese government.

• In response to the ban, TikTok became inaccessible to its 170 million U.S. users, leading to widespread disappointment and uncertainty among content creators and businesses reliant on the platform.

• President-elect Trump's intervention aims to extend the deadline for ByteDance to secure a U.S. buyer, potentially allowing the platform to continue operating domestically under new ownership.

• Despite the restoration of services, TikTok remains unavailable for download on major app stores, including Apple's App Store and Google Play, pending further legal and administrative actions.

• The situation underscores the complex interplay between technology, national security, and international relations, as the U.S. government navigates concerns over foreign ownership of widely used digital platforms.

🤔 The potential political clout of this move is pretty obvious, regardless of national security concerns. Does Gen Z see it for what it is? Or is bringing back everyone's favorite thumb treadmill enough to buy Trump some leadway with the youth? In any case — even though it was a brief shutdown, this event is likely to give creators and businesses pause before relying too heavily on social media apps for their operations.

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