Bill proposal aims to criminalize the use of DeepSeek in the U.S.
If the measure is approved, American citizens could face fines of up to 1 million dollars for downloading DeepSeek.
A new legislative proposal seeks to declare the download of DeepSeek, a popular artificial intelligence application originating from China, illegal for U.S. citizens. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley introduced an initiative on Monday aimed at "banning the import and export of artificial intelligence technology to or from China." Although the announcement mentions DeepSeek, the bill, titled the Decoupling America’s Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act, does not explicitly name the Chinese company but advocates for protecting U.S. intellectual property and preventing a foreign adversary from using technology that could threaten national security.
Hawley stated that "the U.S. cannot afford to empower its greatest adversary at the expense of its own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority requires cutting China off from American creativity and curbing the funding of innovation from the Chinese Communist Party." In this context, the release of DeepSeek's R1 model has raised concerns in the technology industry, particularly because this large language model (LLM) was developed at a lower cost than models like OpenAI's GPT-4, which could pose a risk to the AI industry in the U.S.
OpenAI has alleged that DeepSeek trained its model using data from OpenAI itself, raising criticism over the irony of both groups. Additionally, there have been concerns regarding the ethics and privacy of DeepSeek. Users of the application have reported instances of censorship, such as evading questions related to the Tiananmen Square and the suffering of the Uyghur people. Its privacy policy also indicates that it collects a significant amount of user data and stores it on servers in China, posing risks of access by the Chinese government.
The situation surrounding DeepSeek echoes the attempt to ban TikTok in the U.S., adopted for similar reasons. However, Hawley’s legislation not only seeks to prohibit access to this application but also imposes penalties for those who download DeepSeek, considering it a criminal act. If passed, the law could impose fines of up to one million dollars, along with prison sentences of up to 20 years, based on the Export Control Reform Act of 2018.
In addition to banning imports and exports related to Chinese AI technology, Hawley's proposal also aims to prevent U.S. companies from conducting AI research in China or collaborating with Chinese companies, as well as prohibiting investments by U.S. companies in AI firms in China. The language of the bill is broad, which may target closing any loopholes that allowed the rise of DeepSeek. The company benefited from the lack of access to Nvidia GPUs due to restrictions imposed on China, forcing them to resort to possibly smuggled or less powerful chips.
However, some users on X have expressed concern that such legislation, which limits the development of open-source AI, could ultimately stifle innovation in the U.S. or push Chinese companies to seek alternative solutions and develop new technologies.
