A pair of US politicians are attempting to outlaw government employees from using the artificial intelligence chatbot from Chinese company DeepSeek on official equipment.
Reps. Darin LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, are set to introduce legislation on Friday that would ban the use of DeepSeek on government equipment over national security concerns.
DeepSeek is just the most recent target in a larger battle between the United States and China for tech supremacy.
The attempted crackdown comes after DeepSeek shocked Wall Street and Silicon Valley by releasing an advanced AI model, the R1, with the same capabilities as the best American models, but with less money to train and less power-hungry. The model, which was developed by a year-old Chinese startup and subject to US export restrictions for the most potent AI chips, has raised concerns that the United States might fall behind China in AI.
The proposed bill would give government agencies 60 days to develop guidelines and standards for removing DeepSeek, as well as any other app created by its parent company, High Flyer, from official devices.
The proposal follows similar moves by , Italy and Taiwan.
A comment request was not responded to by DeepSeek.
The proposed bill’s language also echoes legislation that has attempted to encircle access to TikTok in the United States over concerns that ByteDance, its Chinese-based owner, might be forced to give the Chinese government sensitive US user data.
Beginning in 2022, federal and state government agencies will no longer permit the use of TikTok on official devices. Additionally, because of a law that was passed with bipartisan support last year and extended by President Donald Trump in January, ByteDance now has fewer than 60 days to sell the app before TikTok is banned in the United States.
” The Chinese Communist Party has made it abundantly clear that it will exploit any tool at its disposal to undermine our national security, spew harmful disinformation, and collect data on Americans”, Gottheimer said in a . We have seen China’s playbook with TikTok before, and we cannot allow it to happen again. We simply can’t risk the CCP infiltrating our government officials ‘ devices and jeopardizing our national security.
Many AI companies use the inputs from users ‘ conversations with chatbots to train and enhance their models, raising privacy concerns. However, security experts have already reacted to the warning that DeepSeek’s Chinese owner might pose a higher risk.
Users should be aware that any data shared with the platform could be subject to government access under China’s cybersecurity laws, which require that businesses grant data access to individuals upon request from authorities, according to NordVPN cybersecurity expert Adrianus Warmenhoven in an emailed commentary.