Hey Reader,
Peace and blessings unto you. To me it felt like this weekend went a little quick. I don't like talking about time in that way but from a physics perspective, I must have covered a lot of distance this weekend. My Buffalo Bills lost which sucks, but you know what, how I feel about it is they just don't want to win bad enough. They are obviously a good team, and we can certainly improve and get better in terms of giving Allen more support. But when you consistently choke when it counts, that's an attitude thing. You can have the talent to be a champion and you can practice to be a champion, but if you don't have the belief set or temperament of a champion you can fall short.
News Brief
DeepSeek
DeepSeek is the latest AI model to take the business and technology world by storm. DeepSeek has been around since 2023 but has recently made news for its revolutionary approach to its technology. I shared in this Newsletter that the U.S. government is considering putting restrictions in place for certain countries to have access to the latest GPU chips, primarily made by Nvidia. They are doing this because AI is the next frontier. Recently, Trump also announced a $500 billion federal investment into AI infrastructure. Since OpenAI originally took the world by storm back in 2022 the total AI investment by various players in the field has been 10s of billions of dollars. Artificial intelligence is an expensive venture because of the amount of compute and energy needed. The goal for many leaders in the AI space is Artificial General Intelligence or AGI. AGI is just before Artificial Super Intelligence or ASI. The potential for money to be made from artifical intelligence is in it's ability to think and execute at a high level. Investors basically want a sentient Siri or Alexa. They want to be able to tell AI to do something and for the AI to do it before they finish their sentence. Objectively that can't come quick or easy, but DeepSeek is demonstrating that it could come affordably. What has taken OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Elon Musk, billions of dollars to create, with little to no ROI by the way, DeepSeek has been able to do for a fraction of the price, approximately $6 million. Until now that was unheard of.
DeepSeek is an open source AI created in China and they have a lower ethical standard than the AI made in America. But the general sentiment of investors right now is who cares. From their perspective, they've been spending billions on AI with no return, meanwhile DeepSeek is created on a fraction of the price and is performing at the same level if not better in some instances when compared to OpenAI. That said however, one of the issues with this "innovation" is that it's not innovative at all. DeepSeek is built on ChatGPT. DeepSeek is using a modded version of OpenAI's product to make a "better" version of OpenAI. Without what OpenAI has done in the field already we wouldn't be having this kind of conversation around DeepSeek. What makes DeepSeek revolutionary is that the way they are training their model is by doing more with less. That's the real story. instead of having the latest chips which America is trying to restrict, DeepSeek is using older outdated chips more efficiently to develop their model. And they are developing their model using ChatGPT as their foundation. When you take the money and greed out of the equation what DeepSeek is doing is not impressive. It's like someone saying they got a deal at the 99 cent store, no sh** Sherlock. The bottom line is whoever can make AI profitable the fastest will win this leg of the AI race. Regardless, however, I'd rather have freedom loving, democratic, red, white, and blue artificial intelligence every day of the week, than cheap communist AI.
Columbia's About-face
On Sunday there was a political battle that took place between Colombia and America. The United States, since Trump has taken office has moved to immediately start deporting illegal aliens from the country. Among those illegal aliens are Colombian nationals. On Sunday Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to allow the return of Colombian citizens to the country via American Air crafts. Some of the major countries in Latin America including Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil have been dissatisfied with the treatment of their citizens as criminals. These individuals have been arriving in their home country in hand-cuffs and have been treated poorly during transportation. After hearing that Columbia wasn't going to let U.S. flights land in their country with their (Colombian) citizens, President Donald Trump said that he would put a 75% tariff on all Colombian imports into America. That basically means you probably wouldn't be drinking Colombian coffee anymore. After this announcement, President Petro said that he would allow U.S. flights into his country with migrants and that he was sending his presidential plane to help with the deportations. He did on the other hand, put a 25% tariff on American imports into Colombia. So far Trump is doing what he said he would and it appears to be working.
Cabinet Hearings
This week RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel will be having their senate hearings to be part of Trump's administration. I'm optimistic that they will get confirmed, particularly after Pete Hegseth was confirmed last week. Up until now he was the most controversial pick. Each one of these nominees have baggage. RFK Jr. is smeared as an anti-vaxxer and a sell-out. He was a Democrat for his whole life until this last election cycle. He is up for the Department of Health Secretary to make America healthy again. Tulsi Gabbard is a lieutenant in the U.S. military, she too was once a Democrat and a democratic presidential candidate in 2019-2020. She is nominated for the Director of National Intelligence and may have one of the bigger hurdles. She is seen as untrustworthy for meeting with Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Russian president, Vladimir Putin. That said she is a war hawk so that may give her some favor among her dissenters. Kash Patel is the wildcard because he is basically mega MAGA. He is nominated for the Director of the FBI. Patel is a career lawyer who served in Trump's first administration in a different capacity. He wants to overhaul the FBI and make it a more fair and objective department. Historically no one in government or the american citizens themselves have liked the FBI and there has been a poor execution of justice on their part. The hearings will be public for people to watch should you so choose.
Encouragement for your week
This week I want to encourage you to quadruple down. Over the weekend I was thinking about the future Life with Ken and how I can improve certain things. While I was doing so I got stuck because I found myself trying to reinvent the wheel. I was thinking about doing things that I could do but don't want to do. It made me re-align with my purpose of starting on this journey in the first place. And what I realized is, I'm content with what I'm doing. I concluded that I would rather get better at doing what I'm currently doing than try to do something else. What solidified this conclusion is I'm at peace with where I am at and I found that peace being disrupted when considering going other places. Sometimes the blessing in life is to find your lane and stay in it. So, that's what I encourage you to do this week. Find what you're content in and work on making that metaphorical house a home as opposed to constantly jumping from one thing to the next.
You can contact me by responding to the email or filling out this form. Also follow Life with Ken on your favorite social media platforms to stay up to date with us throughout the week.
Have a transformational week!
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