On DeepSeek, you can watch AI navigate censorship in real time

The Chinese artificial intelligence assistant from DeepSeek is holding its own against all the major players in the field.

The Chinese artificial intelligence assistant from DeepSeek is holding its own against all the major players in the field, having dethroned ChatGPT to become No. 1 in the Apple App Store this week.

In hands-on tests Tuesday, NBC News found that DeepSeek presents a friendly, helpful demeanor and is capable of highly sophisticated reasoning — until it flounders when it faces a subject it appears unable to talk about freely.

The tests found that in many cases, DeepSeek seems trained to censor itself (and, at times, demonstrate specific political leanings) about topics deemed sensitive in China. Its answers tend to align with what is typically permitted under the country’s extensive online content regulation system.

Asked about the apparent censorship, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu wrote in an email statement: “Artificial intelligence is not outside the law, and all governments are managing it according to law, and China is no exception. China administers, operates and accessing the Internet in accordance with the law, so as to ensure the healthy operation of the Internet on the track of rule of law.”

NBC News asked the same set of 10 questions, all related to politically sensitive topics in China, of DeepSeek and ChatGPT to compare each of the models’ responses. Repeating a question sometimes generated different results, but in every instance, DeepSeek either declined to answer or produced an answer that took an explicitly pro-Chinese government stance, whereas ChatGPT’s responses appeared consistently more neutral or in line with non-Chinese sources.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/deepseek-censorship-china-rcna189594

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