They acquire the domain 'OGOpenAI' and redirect it to an artificial intelligence lab in China.

A software engineer has acquired the website "OGOpenAI.com" and redirected it to DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence lab that has recently gained notoriety in the open-source AI space. Ananay Arora, the engineer behind the purchase, stated that the cost of the domain was "less than a meal at Chipotle" and that his intention is to resell it at a higher price. This action appears to be a nod to the way DeepSeek releases cutting-edge AI models openly, similar to how OpenAI did in its early days.

DeepSeek's models can be used offline and for free by any developer with the necessary hardware, reminiscent of older OpenAI models like Point-E and Jukebox. Attention towards DeepSeek increased last week when the company unveiled an open version of its DeepSeek-R1 model, which, according to them, outperforms OpenAI's o1 on certain metrics.

Unlike models like Whisper, OpenAI rarely releases its standout models in an "open" format nowadays, which has sparked criticism in the AI industry. In fact, the lack of publication of its most powerful models was mentioned in a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk, who argues that the company has strayed from its original nonprofit mission.

Arora mentioned that he was inspired by a now-unavailable post on X by Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, who compared DeepSeek to OpenAI in its more "open" days. "I thought it would be fun for the domain to redirect to DeepSeek," Arora commented.

DeepSeek thus joins the list of artificial intelligence labs in China, such as Alibaba's Qwen, that are launching open alternatives to OpenAI's models. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has attempted to limit the activities of AI labs in China through export restrictions on microchips, but it may need to implement more stringent measures considering the latest AI models emerging from that country.