Congress Could Ban DeepSeek
Well, here we go again. With TikTok’s future in the US still uncertain , parts of Congress are already moving to ban DeepSeek, the Chinese competitor to ChatGPT that quickly usurped ChatGPT on the App Store last week.
The new bill, introduced by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, would “prohibit United States persons from developing artificial intelligence capabilities in the People’s Republic of China.” In other words, it would effectively ban DeepSeek, even though the AI chatbot is not mentioned by name.
According to the bill, anyone found guilty of “importing from China or exporting to China artificial intelligence technology” could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $1 million for individuals and a fine of up to 10 million dollars. normal for business.
Are you likely to be penalized for using DeepSeek as an individual? Well, the bill leaves room for that, so be careful if it does become law. More realistically, as with piracy laws, this law is likely to target distributors and developers, so if it passes, expect DeepSeek and other Chinese AIs to leave the App Store.
The bill is likely worded so broadly because DeepSeek is open source, as it is currently easy for developers to simply download its models and incorporate them into their applications. The legislation would aim to curb such practices, although it would also jeopardize future international cooperation, even the reading of Chinese research papers on AI.
In a statement, Senator Hawley said, “Every dollar and gigabyte of data that goes into Chinese AI is dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States.”
Senator Hawley is not the first to express concerns about DeepSeek. AI has already been banned from use in the Navy due to “potential security and ethical concerns” and on Texas government devices . OpenAI also told the Financial Times that it has evidence that DeepSeek may have been built from OpenAI models, which, while common practice in AI development, is against OpenAI’s terms of service once the resulting models are distributed. There has also already been a high-profile data breach , and DeepSeek’s terms of use include consent to the collection of your keystrokes .
At the same time, the law’s strict language has experts concerned about the future development and oversight of AI, as it could jeopardize AI collaboration and transparency. Electronic Frontier Foundation Director of Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Access Law Projects Keith Walsh told 404 Media that “The bill threatens the development and publication of advances in artificial intelligence in the United States… the government argues that simply publishing information online is considered an export.” , and such an interpretation of this law will further cement the dominance of proprietary AI over open source or academic research.” In other words, American tech companies will be incentivized to be even more insular about how their artificial intelligence works, which could impact much more than that of Chinese competitors.