The US Department of Defense and Congress have banned their employees from using a new Chinese chatbot based on artificial intelligence DeepSeek.
Bloomberg and Axios write about this.
The Defense Information Systems Agency, which is responsible for the Pentagonʼs IT networks, has blocked access to the DeepSeek website. The chatbotʼs privacy policy states that user data is stored on servers in China and is governed by Chinese law.
The US Congress is still strongly warning its staff not to use DeepSeek because it is still being tested and has not been authorized for official use.
Congressional officials sent out a warning to staff, stating that some people are already “using DeepSeek to deliver malware and infect devices”. As a result, the US House of Representatives has restricted DeepSeek functionality on all House-issued devices.
A few days earlier, the US Navy also banned any use of DeepSeek due to potential security issues and ethical risks.
What is DeepSeek?
On January 27, DeepSeek overtook ChatGPT to become the most popular free app on the App Store. On the same day, the Chinese chatbot was subjected to a large-scale cyberattack.
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a 40-year-old graduate of the School of Information and Electronic Engineering. He set up a store for Nvidia A100 chips, which are now banned from being exported to China. Media reports suggest that this may have prompted him to launch DeepSeek, combining those chips with cheaper, lower-end ones that are still available for import.
DeepSeek is based on the open-source DeepSeek-V3 model. Some experts say that the model was developed for less than $6 million — competitors spend much more. However, other experts dispute this information.
OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, said on January 29 that Chinese companies are “constantly” trying to use American competitors to improve their AI models.
- Italy has blocked the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek.
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