A DeepSeek engineer's reflections on ai's impact and ethical concerns

An AI developer at DeepSeek, Liu Shengyu, shared insights into the challenges faced by workers in China's frontier AI labs through a blog post titled 'I Have No Choice but to Bury My Talent in Yesterday.' Published on his WeChat account, the post reflects on how AI is rapidly evolving from a tool for documentation and bug detection to a system capable of reading and optimizing GPU code. Liu expressed pride in DeepSeek v4.1's success but acknowledged the potential for AI to surpass human expertise in writing operators. He fears that while he may not be unemployed, the hands-on aspects of his work could be replaced by AI, likening the shift to a knitter giving up manual crafting for a faster machine. Liu also voiced concerns about the concentration of frontier AI in the hands of a few companies, warning that this could exacerbate inequality. He emphasized the need for open and affordable access to cutting-edge intelligence, expressing distrust in companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. His post coincided with growing industry concerns about the rapid development of AI, as seen in the recent resignation of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic over safety issues. Industry leaders including Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk have since joined the debate on whether the race to build more powerful AI is moving too quickly.