This comes after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, introduced a rival to ChatGPT, which has become extremely popular recently.
According to The Guardian, the app has also become the most downloaded free app in both the UK and the US.
The new low-cost AI caused a $1 trillion loss in the value of the leading US tech stock index this week.
Experts are now concerned that it might spread false information and that the Chinese government could potentially misuse users’ data.
Michael Wooldridge, a professor at Oxford University who studies AI, suggested that it’s not unrealistic to believe that the data users input into the chatbot might be shared with the Chinese government.
He said, “I think it’s fine to download it and ask it about the performance of Liverpool football club or chat about the history of the Roman empire, but would I recommend putting anything sensitive or personal or private on them? Absolutely not… Because you don’t know where the data goes.”
Meanwhile, Dame Wendy Hall, a member of the United Nations high-level advisory body on AI, said in a statement, “You can’t get away from the fact that if you are a Chinese tech company dealing with information you are subject to the Chinese government’s rules on what you can and cannot say.”
Meanwhile, Ross Burley, a co-founder of the Centre for Information Resilience, expressed deep concerns over the situation, stating, “We should be alarmed. We’ve seen time and again how Beijing weaponizes its tech dominance for surveillance, control, and coercion, both domestically and abroad.”
People use AI tools like DeepSeek and ChatGPT to help with tasks like processing personal documents or work-related papers.
However, any document uploaded to these platforms could be accessed by the company that owns the AI, and the company might use it to train the AI or for other purposes.
