DeepSeek V3.1: Open-Source’s Answer to AI Elitism

China’s DeepSeek just dropped a 685-billion parameter open-weight model that doesn’t ask for permission—or a subscription. Meet DeepSeek V3.1, the kind of audacious middle finger to proprietary AI that makes Silicon Valley boardrooms sweat through their Patagonia vests. 🚀 While OpenAI and Anthropic are busy perfecting their velvet-rope policies, DeepSeek is handing out front-row tickets to the future of AI—for free. Early benchmarks? Rivaling Claude Opus. Coding performance? A cool 71.6% on Aider. Context length? A staggering 128k tokens. And all of it runs on consumer hardware. But here’s the real kicker: it’s open. Not “open-washed.” Not “open but…” Actually open. The kind of open that lets developers fine-tune, fork, and frankly, have fun without begging API overlords for another credit bump. Is this the end of closed-model dominance? Maybe not today. But it’s a loud, unignorable shot across the bow—one that says intelligence shouldn’t be a luxury good. 🤖