A frenzy over an artificial intelligence chatbot made by Chinese tech startup DeepSeek was upending stock markets Monday and fueling debates over the economic and geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China in developing AI technology.
DeepSeek’s AI assistant became the No. 1 downloaded free app on Apple’s iPhone store Monday, propelled by curiosity about the ChatGPT competitor. Part of what’s worrying some U.S. tech industry observers is the idea that the Chinese startup has caught up with the American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost.
As DeepSeek grows in popularity — not long after TikTok, another Chinese-based app, was temporarily banned in the U.S. — AI experts say users should understand how the app uses the collected data.
“What users might not understand is when they interact with an open or an AI model, that interaction creates data, and that data is used as training data,” David Nguyen, a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Technological Leadership Institute, said.
“That data belongs to them. So every time you interact with this model, that’s more data it can feed back upon itself,” Nguyen added.
According to DeepSeek’s lengthy privacy policy, that data can include personal information shared while people create their profile, text, files uploaded, and chat history.
The policy also states it keeps the data “as long as necessary” to have the app function and that it stores information “in secure servers located in the People’s Republic of China.”
“Scrutiny from experts should somewhat alleviate concerns about privacy and security as well,” said Manjeet Rege, director of the University of St. Thomas’ Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.
On Monday, the company said that it had suffered “large-scale malicious attacks” on its services. Registered users could log in normally, DeepSeek said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
