Is DeepSeek something to worry about?

[iv4n]

Have you seen the joke "Ask DeepSeek about Tiananmen Square"? I don't know if it's true, but if it is then DeepSeek is heavily censored, and who knows what other things the Chinese have reworked there to suit them.

Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

They all do it... they collect/process/analyze/store/use data as they see fit and for what they see fit. Maybe in the end it's just a matter of comfort, some people feel more comfortable having their data collected by the country they live in.

[Iranus]

First of all, if you think that China stealing your data is a new thing, you need to wake up and realize that they are taking as much data from you as they can, hell they would take your mail and password if they can, they are all fine for it, you are their opponent, and they are a dictatorship, they want to control not just their own citizens, but everywhere else too, that's what a dictatorship does.

It's not just Chinese products and it's not just the communist regime that wants to collect user data and control people. Even products like Facebook, gmail, whatsapp, x...or any technology product that is derived from capitalism are collecting our data. Because that's how they make money and that's how the government controls us. User privacy is being seriously violated but it's funny that no one speaks up about this issue when using Facebook, open AI...but most people will blame products coming from China  .

I am not a programmer but as far as I know Deepseek is open source and anyone with tech knowledge can check if they are collecting user data or not. We should not rush to judgment or conclusions when it is not our area of ​​expertise or we have not taken the time to research.

[viljy]

Hello there,

I've seen a couple of topics have already popped up regarding DeepSeek, talking about how it might burst the U.S.A.'s tech bubble or how it caused a market stock crash. I haven't checked the validity of these claims, but I've also seen posts mentioning how it was responsible for a minor crash in the cryptocurrency market. From my understanding, DeepSeek is an open-source AI that cost far less money to develop than ChatGPT while providing the same service. I actually downloaded it on my phone to test it out, and I can't see any major functionality differences with ChatGPT, apart from the "Deep think" option, which shows the "chain of thought.".

I haven't used it for any complex purposes, even though I'm planning to test it with some Excel data from my master's thesis, so I'm not the most suitable person to judge its capabilities, nor compare them to other platforms. However, I'm not understanding how DeepSeek is thought to be such an economic threat to the U.S.A. I understand that open-sourcing it is a huge deal; everyone can access it on Github; everything is public, but why has it blown over? Everyone seems to be talking about it.

What concerned me, though, isn't the economic threat or the supposed drop in the cryptocurrency market, but a video I saw a few days ago on Instagram and TikTok, showing that traffic is being sent to China and on Alibaba Cloud. On the one hand, it sounds plausible because their servers are situated there, right? On the other hand, though, it is possible that it's sending our personal data.

What are your thoughts? Is it an economic threat? Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

I'm quoting an article and the video itself.

Video

Article

Every AI service that you use online always collects the information. In particular, dialogues with users are subsequently cleared and formed into datasets for training models. Some services warn about this, some do it behind the scenes. If confidentiality is required, you can run AI models locally. That's exactly what open source models are for. In fact, the level of small models is very high now, and a child can handle the launch. Moreover, you can run locally on a wide variety of hardware. If we talk about DeepSeek, then there are small distilled (a large model generates a very clean and high-quality dataset on which small models are trained) Qwen and Llama models from DeepSeek that can be run locally even on a smartphone.

In general, for any work that requires confidentiality, you should never use publicly available online AI services. Subsequently, by analyzing your conversations with AI with the help of a specially trained AI model, corporations can restore your ideas or something you are working on.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I also became interested in DeepSeek and installed the app on my phone, but soon I heard the news that everyone who has this app is being tracked. I am not ready for such a scenario, but I think that I have already left my mark, even having completely deleted the app, since I know that TikTok also tracks users without even registering in it, but simply by visiting this network. Anything free, and the DeepSeek app positions itself as free, cannot have a simple, aimless, charitable purpose. You will have to pay for everything; in this case, users are tracked by Chinese developers, as well as those who trust their data to Americans, who use Apple gadgets.
The Internet is increasingly reminiscent of an open window, which requires good knowledge to close.

[shield132]

I haven't used it for any complex purposes, even though I'm planning to test it with some Excel data from my master's thesis, so I'm not the most suitable person to judge its capabilities, nor compare them to other platforms.

Not only DeepSeek but the development of AI is something to worry about. At the moment, it is not a threat for anyone except copywriters but long term, I think that it will be a game changer for all of us. I'm in UI/UX design and I'm testing AI tools. DeepSeek or ChatGPT aren't capable of creating a visual design of a website or application but they can help you with creating personas and doing UX research but they can't test the prototypes.

However, I'm not understanding how DeepSeek is thought to be such an economic threat to the U.S.A.

It's an open-source project and is much cheaper and more powerful compared to ChatGPT and other AIs that spend billions of dollars. If China did it with such a small budget, imagine what they can do with the budget of American AI companies.

What are your thoughts? Is it an economic threat? Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

It's both. If you are using the internet today, your data is collected, it's not DeepSeek only that collects your data but the good thing about DeepSeek is that if you invest some money in good equipment, you can run it on your own computer and you won't have to worry about your data.

[STT]

Economic threat and also burst the bubble are two contradictory things.   If Deepseek provided a product cheaper then the consumer wins, ultimately even us small players could benefit from a more easily available product.     Its only Nvidia with their giant lead on others who really could call it a negative, if they dont have an exclusive market then sure they may possibly make less money.   Thats not an overall negative and economics is the people the simple working majority of a country so economic threat doesnt fit really imo.


Put it this way in historic terms.  The first PC were special products, IBM came up with this idea of a personal computer a small chip for little users.   I can tell you the rough pricing, it was about the same as a very small car new which is a ton more then it costs now.   They did not intend this wide open market in PC builds we have today, do you think we lost as plain users when IBM failed to dominate a market.   [Apple were around but they've always been too high costs and very closed design.)

[coupable]

In general, for any work that requires confidentiality, you should never use publicly available online AI services. Subsequently, by analyzing your conversations with AI with the help of a specially trained AI model, corporations can restore your ideas or something you are working on.

This is a valid point. However i think all those using apps from big companies being tracked in some way or another. People in most countries are not that really interested to their privacy/safety online, although they know the damage that may occur in a large scale once the collected information analysed.

The economic impact can be seen in sectors that have been directly affected by AI programs in general and not by a specific application. There is a service sector that has completely disappeared and one can imagine the jobs that have been lost and the danger that awaits other sectors in the near future.

[Ultegra134]

I also became interested in DeepSeek and installed the app on my phone, but soon I heard the news that everyone who has this app is being tracked. I am not ready for such a scenario, but I think that I have already left my mark, even having completely deleted the app, since I know that TikTok also tracks users without even registering in it, but simply by visiting this network. Anything free, and the DeepSeek app positions itself as free, cannot have a simple, aimless, charitable purpose. You will have to pay for everything; in this case, users are tracked by Chinese developers, as well as those who trust their data to Americans, who use Apple gadgets.
The Internet is increasingly reminiscent of an open window, which requires good knowledge to close.

I also have the app in my phone but I'm not using it, in fact, I might as well delete it. On the other hand, it sounds a little ironic, because our phones hold a ton of data and DeepSeek is probably the least privacy issue. I don't doubt that they might be using the data for advertising, how are they generating an income?

I am not going to use DeepSeek, no matter how advanced it gets. To me, it is an important matter of choosing not to partake in Chinese propaganda and support of its authoritarianism. But, unfortunately, I am quite sure that many people don't care about it as much, or they believe that the US is just as bad, so it doesn't matter. And because of that, it can become very successful. That being said, I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a threat to the US economy.
As for open-source, there've been open-source AI models one can locally run and toy with for a while now. I think it's more about a major competitor appearing, as China is powerful.

On the one hand, I don't understand why we always portray China as bad and U.S.A. as good. Shouldn't the same rule that applies to DeepSeek also apply to ChatGPT or any other American platform that may store our personal data?

~Snipped~

This is actually a great analysis and exactly on point. You described the current situation with simple words that even someone who has zero clue can understand what you're talking about.

I also don't consider it a risk for the U.S. economy, as you and other users such as BlackHatCoiner, it's a competition, and when someone manages to create a similar product at the fraction of the cost, then it's a major deal.

[SamReomo]

Deepseek isn't something to be worry about but it's something that could be helpful for most of us. Although, it's similar to Chatgpt but it's fully open-source and that means we can use it on our own PC without internet and that's a pretty good thing.

I have downloaded its lowest 1.5 B parameters model yesterday and on my system it was performing quite good. It's a useful project and it's just a free and open-source LLM and that's why it's good for some people.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Have you seen the joke "Ask DeepSeek about Tiananmen Square"? I don't know if it's true, but if it is then DeepSeek is heavily censored, and who knows what other things the Chinese have reworked there to suit them.

DeepSeek is open source, you can use it without data collection and censorship through providers like Venice AI. Closed source models like ChatGPT can be used without your data leaving your device, depending on the interface it is used through, but I don’t think it’s possible to get uncensored answers when you ask it about certain controversial topics.

[Tigerheart3026]

First of all, if you think that China stealing your data is a new thing, you need to wake up and realize that they are taking as much data from you as they can, hell they would take your mail and password if they can, they are all fine for it, you are their opponent, and they are a dictatorship, they want to control not just their own citizens, but everywhere else too, that's what a dictatorship does.

It's not just Chinese products and it's not just the communist regime that wants to collect user data and control people. Even products like Facebook, gmail, whatsapp, x...or any technology product that is derived from capitalism are collecting our data. Because that's how they make money and that's how the government controls us. User privacy is being seriously violated but it's funny that no one speaks up about this issue when using Facebook, open AI...but most people will blame products coming from China  .

I am not a programmer but as far as I know Deepseek is open source and anyone with tech knowledge can check if they are collecting user data or not. We should not rush to judgment or conclusions when it is not our area of ​​expertise or we have not taken the time to research.

such big giants companies collect our data and i heard a lot of times they also selling our important data in darkweb market but i don't it's right or wrong, because i can not verify it, but in my understanding it's true. and i did not see any action about such companies because they are big.

[dansus021]

What are your thoughts? Is it an economic threat? Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

Is DeepSeek something to worry about? For now I don't think deepseek is something to worry about, ChatGpt and Sam Altman said that DeepSeek is its rival and make it as fair competition. For now and then USA and Europe or Western country always make something revolutionary and then China used technique called ATM in Indonesia Amati Tiru Modifikasi or called observe imitate modify and somehow china make it whether cheaper or better from the original version.

Data collection is widely known as secret and most of the company including from the USA also collect user data some of it in Term of Service

[davis196]

Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

Yes, I do think that every AI chatbot is collecting the data we submit to it. Not only DeepSeek, but ChatGPT and other chatbots as well.
I don't think that this is necessarily bad. If you think that an AI chatbot is going to gather your info and spy on you, just don't use AI chatbots.
Do you think that the bursting of the US tech bubble is a bad thing. I think that the bursting of the US tech bubble is a good thing.
Competition is good for the markets. We don't need tech monopolies based in the USA.
And by the way, I don't believe in all the hype around DeepSeek. Maybe the developers behind DeepSeek used lots of the machine learning models behind ChatGPT. I find it hard to believe in the "we made a chatbot, that is better than ChatGPT for less than 10 million dollars" theory.

[Porfirii]

-snip-

Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

They all do it... they collect/process/analyze/store/use data as they see fit and for what they see fit. Maybe in the end it's just a matter of comfort, some people feel more comfortable having their data collected by the country they live in.

Maybe because I'm European and we have here a culture towards data protection, but I'm not comfortable with the fact that my data could be collected by any country (not even mine itself).

It's somehow curious how for many things we consider ourselves very privacy oriented (especially in this Bitcoin forum), but when it comes to AI many users don't care what their data could be used for in the future. Maybe nothing bad will happen, but in this novel field we should prepare for the unexpected.

[Felicity_Tide]

However, I'm not understanding how DeepSeek is thought to be such an economic threat to the U.S.A.

Exactly the point of view that most of us can't picture from.
It literally becomes a threat because the US competitors who are into same game(Tech area), consider it to be a threat. The hype was just too much, that I was scared at some point.

What concerned me, though, isn't the economic threat or the supposed drop in the cryptocurrency market, but a video I saw a few days ago on Instagram and TikTok, showing that traffic is being sent to China and on Alibaba Cloud. On the one hand, it sounds plausible because their servers are situated there, right? On the other hand, though, it is possible that it's sending our personal data.

What are your thoughts? Is it an economic threat? Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

Well, this I can not tell, and I believe the US will see everything wrong in this if eventually it is true, but might not see it as a big deal if it was actually from the US. I don't use both apps that you mentioned, so I guess I have to find the video somewhere else.

But the personal ids that this Ai model is asking for is quite suspicious.
Like I said in one of my old reply, which I will quote below, "I haven't even used this Deepseek that everyone is talking about", till this very minute, so I can't certainly say that it is collecting users data.
But if eventually it is, and it is made known to the American government, then I believe it will be addressed.

And I don't see it as an economic threat in anyway. The only people that might be having issues here are the competitors like meta and Openai.

~snip

If other AI companies feel threatened by the development, then they should also make improvements in theirs. Just like you've said, "it's a free world", therefore we need such competition to make further advancement in tech. And the funny thing is that I haven't even use this Deepseek that everyone talks about.

[Alone055]

Data collection should be the least of our concerns, in my opinion, because any of us who are using the internet are basically giving away our data to the companies whose services we use, and we do it by consent even if we think we are not doing it; we barely read the terms and conditions before signing up for a service or even read privacy policies because we, at least most of us, think they are a waste of time since at the end of the day, we have to use their services either for work, entertainment, hobbies, etc.

The services we currently use are doing the same thing; the only difference is that there are different countries operating them, and as someone else said it, that might be a problem of comfort because we might not feel threatened if a company from our country is collecting our data but if another does it, we feel it shouldn't happen; however, in reality, if privacy matters to you, it should matter in both cases and if it doesn't, then it doesn't really matter which country is collecting your data as long as you are getting the services you need.

[d5000]

I haven't checked the validity of these claims, but I've also seen posts mentioning how it was responsible for a minor crash in the cryptocurrency market.

The small DeepSeek crypto crash for sure was the typical chain reaction:

- US tech stocks drop (pulled down by Nvidia)
- Some investors don't want to sell their stocks for a loss, but may fear to be forced to (e.g. because of leverage)
- If these same investors hold other risk assets (e.g. Bitcoin) which still haven't crashed that hard, they tend to sell them to gather some liquid fiat and thus be able to sit out the situation.
- Weak hands (crypto retail investors) see the (still minor) crash, panic, see stocks crash, and sell their Bitcoin too. The crash intensifies.

Could there be another effect of DeepSeek on the crypto market? The only other example I can think of is a dump on the AI coin market. If a (possible) breakthrough like DeepSeek makes AI cheaper on a whole, one can imagine the AI coin sector suffer because of decreased profit expectations. FET (the "Artificial Superintelligence Alliance" token) for example got bearish since late January, although the February 3 crash seems unrelated to the DeepSeek discussion.

Possibly psychologic effects can exist too. I've seen some posts on this forum describing some kind of doomsday scenario for Bitcoin due to AI, e.g. that "AI could break Bitcoin's security". Most of these people probably misunderstand and greatly overestimate the capabilities of current AI models and applications. See this "experiment".

[STT]

They are confusing quantum computing with AI and Quantum is decades away still last I read though its no doubt impressive even now.   AI was impressive when it beat a chess grandmaster and that was the 90's

Share value is the least important pricing to consider, its often completely wrong and more of a market price tag then the economic picture is in detail.   The negative to the crypto market is probably correct because the sheer size of the sell off, some trades would require funding and that would be taken from elsewhere such as Bitcoin.  If the market moved a large amount in a day you can bet that will be funded partially by people selling BTC and using the dollars given to balance their brokerage account.
  Short term effects in the market doesnt matter as much as the wider picture.  I perceive Deepseek to represent some efficiency possible and ultimately its a positive as has been the  tech sector overall.

[avikz]

What are your thoughts? Is it an economic threat? Do you also believe that it's collecting any data we submit to it?

How on earth sending data to US is not a risk and doing the same to China is a major risk? Is there any proof that US is not using our data for ill-conceived methods?

Do not fall for the western media and their propaganda! AI collects data and trains their models. That's with every single AI tool available there and not just with Deepseek. Since Deepseek has performed well in many parameters, there's a whole new propaganda being run by the Western media to demonize it. The reality is that every single AI model uses our data to train itself. That's why you will always see a free version available for almost all AI models so that common people like us uses that.

If you have to worry, worry for all AI models available in the market. In a couple of years, these model will become so powerful, it will be a big task to control them. Every country will be forced to bring a law to control AI and its advancements. Deepseek is not a threat, artificial intelligence is!

[shinratensei_]

Data collection should be the least of our concerns, in my opinion, because any of us who are using the internet are basically giving away our data to the companies whose services we use, and we do it by consent even if we think we are not doing it; we barely read the terms and conditions before signing up for a service or even read privacy policies because we, at least most of us, think they are a waste of time since at the end of the day, we have to use their services either for work, entertainment, hobbies, etc.

it is a concern, some other AI service offer privacy some of them also doesn't, where deepseek just outright mention collection of data, imagine you mistakenly uploaded an important pdf where it contains your business' financial data for example, they can collect it and might do something funny with it, for example, training their LLM using that data and suddenly your PDF become public asset because it pop out on some random prompt.

Deepseek isn't something to be worry about but it's something that could be helpful for most of us. Although, it's similar to Chatgpt but it's fully open-source and that means we can use it on our own PC without internet and that's a pretty good thing.

I have downloaded its lowest 1.5 B parameters model yesterday and on my system it was performing quite good. It's a useful project and it's just a free and open-source LLM and that's why it's good for some people.

definitely, even big cloud services that offers computing power were about to offer their own deepseek service because it's open source, unfortunately though it's now banned in the US, I guess they'll cancel all their planned services.