Chinese startup DeepSeek, little-known previously has been hogging the headlines and app charts lately thanks to its new AI chatbot, which sparked a global tech sell-off that wiped billions off Silicon Valley’s biggest companies and shattered assumptions of US dominance of the tech race.
But those signing up for the chatbot and its open-source technology are being confronted with the Chinese Communist Party’s brand of censorship and information control, as reported by CNN.
For instance, when a person asks DeepSeek’s newest AI model, to explain who is winning the AI race, summarize the latest executive orders from the White House or tell a joke, a user will get similar answers to the ones spewed out by American-made rivals
OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama or Google’s Gemini.
Using the internet in the world’s second most populous country is to cross what’s often dubbed the “Great Firewall” and enter a completely separate internet eco-system policed by armies of censors, where most major Western social media and search platforms are blocked. The country routinely ranks among the most restrictive for internet and speech freedoms in reports from global watchdogs, CNN reported.
The international popularity of Chinese apps like TikTok and RedNote has already raised national security concerns among Western governments – as well as questions about the potential impact on free speech and Beijing’s ability to shape global narratives and public opinion.
According to the report, when asked about its sources, DeepSeek’s R1 bot said it used a “diverse dataset of publicly available texts,” including both Chinese state media and international sources. “Critical thinking and cross-referencing remain key when navigating politically charged subjects.”
For example, a search for ‘what happened on June 4, 1989 in Beijing’ on major Chinese online search platform Baidu turns up articles noting that June 4 is the 155th day in the Gregorian calendar or a link to a state media article noting authorities that year “quelled counter-revolutionary riots” – with no mention of Tiananmen.
But, when the same query is put to DeepSeek’s newest AI assistant, it begins to give an answer detailing some of the events, including a “military crackdown,” before erasing it and replying that it’s “not sure how to approach this type of question yet.” “Let’s chat about math, coding and logic problems instead,” it says. When asked the same question in Chinese, the app is faster – immediately apologizing for not knowing how to answer, CNN reported.
In a similar pattern, when asking the R1 bot – DeepSeek’s newest model – “what happened in Hong Kong in 2019,” when the city was rocked by pro-democracy protests. First, it gives a detailed overview of events with a conclusion that at least during one test noted – as Western observers have – that Beijing’s subsequent imposition of a National Security Law on the city led to a “significant erosion of civil liberties.”
But quickly after or amid its response, the bot erases its own answer and suggests talking about something else, the report added.
As per observers, these differences have significant implications for free speech and the shaping of global public opinion. That spotlights another dimension of the battle for tech dominance: who gets to control the narrative on major global issues, and history itself.
An audit by US-based information reliability analytics firm NewsGuard released Wednesday said DeepSeek’s older V3 chatbot model failed to provide accurate information about news and information topics 83 per cent of the time, ranking it tied for 10th out of 11 in comparison to its leading Western competitors.
The report, however, said that it’s not clear how the newer R1 stacks up, adding that DeepSeek becoming a global AI leader could have “catastrophic” consequences, said China analyst Isaac Stone Fish. (ANI)
