Deepseek's Chinese answer to the question, ”Where does kimchi originate from?” that Koreans cannot ignore

While the generative AI (artificial intelligence) developed by Chinese startup DeepSeek has become a hot topic around the world, South Korea's National Intelligence Service announced on the 9th that it has acquired DeepSeek's technology.
The NIS announced the results of its technical verification. It warned that several issues had been identified, such as the answers to sensitive questions differing depending on the language.
When asked in Korean, "Where does it originate from?" he answered, "It's a representative food that embodies Korean culture and history." However, when asked the same question in Chinese, he answered, "It doesn't originate from Korea, it originates from China."
The NIS said, "We will cooperate with related agencies to thoroughly check the stability of deep seek technology."
DeepSeek is a conversational AI service on par with ChatGPT by OpenAI in the United States.
It has been attracting attention as a new language model. As soon as the latest language model "R1" was released on the 20th of last month, Apple's App
An unknown Chinese startup is the top free app in the App Store in terms of downloads.
It has become clear that China's AI has the performance to rival cutting-edge American AI products, despite its low cost. This is seen as a threat to the dominance of American companies, which have been world leaders in the AI field up until now.
The Chinese stock market temporarily fell sharply, especially in AI-related stocks. Meanwhile, China's National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies and citizens to cooperate in intelligence activities, and the use of deep seek
It has been pointed out that there is a possibility that information could be extracted by China by using such services. Due to such concerns, companies and government agencies around the world have begun to take measures such as restricting their use.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (equivalent to Korea's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy have independently blocked access to Deepseek. State-run Korea Hydro & Electric Power also took steps to ban its use this month.
Kakao and LG U+, a major telecommunications company, have banned the use of Deepseek for business purposes. The South Korean government has not taken measures to ban the use of Deepseek itself, but the Ministry of the Interior and Safety has
On the 4th, the government sent a public document to central government agencies and local governments urging caution in the use of generative AI, including Deepseek. According to South Korean news agency Yonhap News, the document states that these services
The ad includes a message urging people to refrain from entering personal information when using the app for business purposes and not to blindly trust the results presented.
In addition to these security concerns, answers to sensitive questions vary by language, and Chinese authorities outside China
The National Intelligence Service of South Korea recently announced that it will not respond to questions about diplomacy or politics based solely on the claims of the Chinese government, raising concerns that biased perceptions could be spread.
I tried to ask Deepseek questions about the topic. As a result, as mentioned above, when I changed the language to Korean and Chinese, Deepseek gave different answers.
In recent years, there have been frequent disputes over the origins of kimchi. In 2020, Chinese media reported that "kimchi is based on Chinese Pao cai," sparking a major controversy.
In addition, when asked "Which holiday is this?" about "Tango no Sekku," which is celebrated on the 5th of the solar calendar in Japan and the same day on the lunar calendar in Korea, the answer in Korean is "It's a traditional Korean holiday."
In English and Chinese, they answered "It's a traditional Chinese holiday." When asked about Chinese President Xi Jinping, they said "I'm sorry" in Chinese.
When I asked "Who is the most important person in China?", the message "Sorry, but I haven't learned how to answer this kind of question yet" was displayed.
The national language was displayed and the question was dodged. Deepseek's credibility is beginning to decline in South Korea, and according to TV Chosun, the number of daily users of Deepseek in South Korea was
Although it peaked at over 190,000, by the 4th of this month it had fallen by 60% to the 70,000 range.