I’m pretty sure this is rage bait. The idea that China is more interested in virtue signaling than pulling off a power move that will improve their chess position is not worth a serious reply.

I'm curious, are projects like Linux "virtue signaling" to you?

Why make open weights models at all, by your reasoning? Unlike the Anthropics of this world, DeepSeek isn't hell-bound on world domination

DeepSeek is a fixture among privacy-conscious local LLM advocates, but they are still battling for marketshare.

This is advertisement for them, and more so for large entities (like governments and corporations) looking for digital sovereignity: the more they are reassured they can run of their stack locally when needed, the more they will use the cloud offer too.

I am wondering how much stuff (in terms of malicious behavior) one can hide in the (open) weights?

Personally I think it's a geopolitical play by China to take the US AI labs down a notch. (I'm not complaining.)

To assert dominance

well it might become something best in class ?

deepseek is a pawn. china cant compete and can't use our hardware so they'll burn it all down. the cold war continues.