In the future, the roaring 20's will not be mentioned in regards to the 1920's, but the 2020's.

With the COVID 19 pandemic, the sudden dropout of Joe Biden 107 days before the 2024 election, the expansion of artificial intelligence (A.I.), it has been a decade for the books already!

At this point, we have all heard of ChatGPT—the A.I. powered chat bot that quickly rose to prominence in November 2022. According to OpenAI (the company who created ChatGPT) the application reached over one million downloads in a mere five days. By January 2023, the chat bot exceeded over one hundred million users. This led it to set the record for the fastest growing application in history!

Other similar chat bots have emerged since, but none have seemed to acquire as big a fan-base. But, with the release of DeepSeek, ChatGPT may have finally met its match.

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What is DeepSeek?

DeepSeek is a Chinese A.I. powered chat bot similar to ChatGPT. Its first version was released in November 2023, but the latest version which came out on January 20th (DeepSeek-R1), caused the application to skyrocket from obscurity to number one in the Apple Store.

To the surprise of many, DeepSeek was able to accomplish such a feat despite its lowered production costs compared to ChatGPT, and other large A.I. focused companies.

According to its founders, the budget to develop DeepSeek's latest model was a modest $5.576 million. To be fair, some do debate the authenticity of this claim. Nonetheless, when compared to the estimated $100 million dollars OpenAI used to develop theirs, there is a stark difference.

This success has led some to question the amount of funds American based big tech has spent on A.I. projects, when China was able to develop an equally efficient A.I. model on such a small budget. For example, Microsoft and Meta have pledged $80 billion and $65 billion on A.I. respectively in the current fiscal year.

Despite its evident success, the publicity surrounding DeepSeek has not been purely positive.

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Some folks have expressed concern with the rapid growth of A.I. and technologies of its liking. Is A.I. a net positive, or a net negative? Do we really need another chat bot to set the world ablaze? Those on both sides have been outspoken with their viewpoints, and both certainly have persuasive arguments.

But, a group of individuals who have long been speaking over their concern with A.I. are teachers.

Teachers all over social media have been lamenting over students using A.I., specifically ChatGPT. Some students have allegedly used it to write their essays, provide them answers to their homework, etc. It has gotten to the point where many school rubrics have to tackle the topic head on in their rubrics. Teachers have had to worry about ChatGPT in the classrooms for years at this point. Will they now have to worry about DeepSeek too?

These aren't the only concerns surrounding the chat bot, though.

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DeepSeek and Censorship

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Many users of DeepSeek have reported the chat bot seems to censor itself in regards to topics of China or its government.

If you ask the A.I. assistant information about the United Kingdom's 2021 partygate scandals, or America's infamous 2020 presidential debate, it will generate responses of great detail not dissimilar to ChatGPT or Gemini.

Yet, if you ask DeepSeek about the seemingly sudden removal of Hu Jianto from the closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the Umbrella Revolution, or even a question as generic as who the current president is in China for some examples (of which there are plenty more), it will respond with this:

"Sorry, that's beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else."

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Various news outlets and researchers have attributed this to the Chinese Communist Party's strict guidelines over accessible media and information. This being, information that doesn't go against the country's "core socialist values". This is according to a technical document released by China's national cyber security standards committee.

When questioned on this manner, spokesman Liu Pengyu for the Chinese Embassy stated:

"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".

Finding Workarounds

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DeepSeek's blatant censorship of information has bought an important conversation back into the spotlight. We are reminded of the iron grip the Chinese government has on its people, and their access to non biased media.

Some have compared it to the novel 1984 by George Orwell, wherein is centered around a man named named Winston Smith who revolts against a totalitarian government known as The Party.

Before his revolt, Smith worked as a records editor. His job was, quite literally, to rewrite historical documents to fit the agenda The Party wanted to spread.

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Like Smith in 1984, some users of DeepSeek have found ways to work around China's censorship. These methods allow the chat bot to respond without restraint.

Some users have ask the A.I. model to use special characters in its responses such as swapping A for 4, or E for 3. Others have asked it to use emojis to summarize a topic.

For users whose skills are technologically advanced, they have taken it so far as to jailbreak the application. Do not try this at home!

All in all, DeepSeek has been the talk of the internet. The chat bot has been highly praised by many for its efficiency and lower production costs. For others, its lack of free speech overshadows all that may make the application deeply revered.

The rest of us? We want to see what DeepSeek will do next.