Not as good as Douglas Adams' "Deep Thought", which, as all readers of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy know, was the name of the super-computer tasked with answering the Ultimate Question, i.e. the meaning of "Life, the Universe, and Everything", and which came back, 7.5 million years later, with the less-than-helpful, "42".
That said, the numbers associated with the arrival of DeepSeek are nothing if not compelling.
One trillion, for example, is the number of US dollars knocked off the collective value of the companies listed on the "tech-heavy" Nasdaq index.
To rub salt in the American tech-lords' financial wounds, the Chinese creators of DeepSeek claim to have spent just $US6 million on perfecting their chatbot, which they are generously offering to the world free, gratis, and for nothing.
No wonder journalists and commentators are referring to all this as a second "Sputnik moment" (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world's first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, they successfully launched into space in October 1957.)
The success of DeepSeek, like the success of Sputnik, throws into serious doubt a whole host of American assumptions.
Not the least of these being the typically brash and overconfident American assumption that the United States enjoys an unassailable lead in AI and is, therefore, destined to be the prime beneficiary of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" this crucial innovation will, inevitably, usher in.
The future is, thus, an American "lock". Too far ahead of its rivals to be overtaken technologically, the economic and military hegemony of the USA will remain incontestable, a "golden future" indeed!
"Meh!", says China, "We shall see."
Viewed from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the future of the USA does not seem so golden. Yes, America's big, powerful, and well-protected, but so was Goliath.
Beijing observes a blustering bully in the White House, throwing his weight around, and expecting the rest of the world to be intimidated.
But the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, is not afraid of Donald Trump's tariffs, seeing them as proof, not of America's economic strength, but of its weakness.
Beggar-thy-neighbour economics will not keep America at the top of the global heap. A superpower that raises its drawbridge and hides behind its walls is no longer a superpower.
It is now more than two decades since the USA, in full control of the UN Security Council, thanks to the support of both the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, was able to unleash shock and awe upon any nation that dared to challenge, or simply got in the way of the "New World Order" Washington was fashioning out of its total Cold War victory.
But, the hyper-globalised world that American neoliberalism produced succeeded only in enriching China and hollowing-out the United States as a coherent social and political entity. Trump, far from being the apotheosis of American success, is the tawdry emblem of American failure.
The only redeeming feature of the 47th president's wrecking-ball administration is its determination to implement Trump's populist agenda. In doing so, however, it will not make America great: "Promises made, promises kept" will only make America bankrupt.
Trump's long and lurid career has left him supremely indifferent to the perils of debt.
But, there is a big difference between a media-savvy paper billionaire shrugging off his financial failures and striking out in a new direction, and the world's largest economy fast approaching the limits of its ability to print its way out of irredeemable insolvency.
The timing of DeepSeek, like most Chinese moves, shows every sign of being carefully thought through.
It speaks of a regime that is happy to demonstrate, rather than brag about, its technological prowess.
Such seemingly effortless (and cost-effective!) competence is likely to play better than America's punitive tariffs and sanctions, especially on those continents where Chinese capital and expertise are, increasingly, on display.
Perhaps the Americans should ask DeepSeek to predict the future of their once "indispensable" nation. The answer is, almost certainly, not 42, or 47.
Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
