DeepSeek is no Chat(Xi)PT. For now

THE DeepSeek reckoning isn’t just about the money.

The Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup that brought the global tech sector to its knees and erased roughly a trillion dollars of stock-market value from some of the world’s most powerful companies overnight comes with fresh challenges for governments seeking to blunt Beijing’s growing influence. As more global users turn to these tools, they could also increasingly be covertly exposed to Beijing’s ideologies.

DeepSeek’s latest models can solve complex math and coding problems, even beating US products on a range of industry benchmarks. But all it takes to stump the chatbot is a question about President Xi Jinping’s leadership or the Tiananmen Square protests. Suddenly, users are met with the response: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”