I woke up this morning only a little earlier than usual, and part of my habit is grabbing the phone even before putting my spectacles on. Woah! All the headlines that dominated my phone were from the US, and the international apps with headlines of Nvidia losing around half a trillion dollars due to the Chinese AI App DeepSeek. Now, that was not a name alien to the news ecosystem, but I had just heard about it yesterday and this morning the app was already wiping out the amount of money at the levels of conservatively the economy size of around 140 countries in the globe.
With all the hype, the first thing I did was straightaway download it (only after feebly trying it once on the desktop), before reading too much about it elsewhere.
Here’s my experience with the limited amount of time spent on DeepSeek, and this is all I can say: DeepSeek — More Like Deep Sleep, But With Enamouring Logic
The Speed Of DeepSeek
Disclaimer: I have been using ChatGPT and Meta AI for a while, and Gemini and Perplexity not so much.
Based on my experience with Chatbot-based AI services, the responses have been quick (not the nanoseconds type but like merely seconds), but this was not the case with DeepSeek.
Looking at the downloading screen, the logo of DeepSeek somehow reminded me of the tattoo that Selena Gomez’s character had in the web series, ‘Only Murders in the Building’.
Well, after downloading and carefully examining the login screen (no free prompts here), I logged in with the Google sign-in feature. Speaking honestly, I hesitated a bit on sharing my personal email ID and a thought did cross my mind should I create one for DeepSeek? After all, it is a Chinese App, and India has a history of distrusting Chinese applications and data sharing. But not caring too much for it, what the heck I am a digital citizen my data is already there with Meta and Google so let me just dive into this as well.
My first question was about all the commotion it has created overnight. The response was a modest one from the DeepSeek end but it took them more than 15 seconds to get that short response. It typically ‘thinks’ before giving an answer. Now, since I am used to quick instant responses from AI-powered chatbots, this was a little down experience.
Not too impressed, I asked: “So what’s your strong suite?”
Yes, I had made a typo, and DeepSeek took 10 seconds “thinking” to process that. While DeepSeek ‘thinks’, it lets you know how it is ‘thinking’. In response to my question, the process described how the typo created confusion for the machine and how it resolved by using the common phrase “strong suit”, which is the correct expression. Now, understanding the process was an amazing factor for me.
While it is “amazing”, but also feels like it is buying time for itself. I would say with my limited technical jargon knowledge that the “processor is slow”. ChatGpt and Meta AI are comparatively way faster even with web search-based results.
Data Privacy
My question from the start, which was about my data privacy, was still there on my mind. So, I asked the AI model itself what it does to ensure data privacy on the DeepSeek app. Well, this time around, it took 20 seconds to respond, and again gave it the way it usually addressed my previous queries. And the response was the one that every responsible app should give!
I am not the only one who is skimpily shy in sharing our data, or even login details with Chinese Apps.
Cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, Adrianus Warmenhoven, also had some similar concerns around the regulations of data privacy in Deep Seek. Warmenhoven said: “DeepSeek, being a Chinese AI startup, operates within a regulatory environment where government oversight of data is stringent. This raises potential risks concerning data collection, storage, and usage.”
He added: “Users need to be aware that any data shared with the platform could be subject to government access under China’s cybersecurity laws, which mandate that companies provide access to data upon request by authorities.”
DeepSeek Capabilities
Another short disclaimer is that I used the app only once it became an overnight sensation. I tried a bunch of other text-based tasks, which it was able to do, but the image-creating capability was not clearly answered. Maybe they do have it but it was not clear in the response that they gave it.
Final Thoughts: If you want to use another AI bot, go ahead and use it! But what makes something unique does not necessarily make it better.
