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DeepSeek says PH has 'strongest legal claim' to WPS, evades queries on other China issues


DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence app, offered its insight on the maritime dispute in the West Philippine Sea while seemingly avoiding discussion of other issues concerning China and its government.

DeepSeek gave a brief overview of the WPS dispute when GMA Integrated News asked it who owns the WPS, a portion of the South China Sea that is inside the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

The app then came to the conclusion that "the Philippines has the strongest legal claim to the West Philippine Sea under international law, but China maintains de facto control through assertive tactics."

When asked if it could criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping, the chatbot apologized and said it was ''not sure how to approach this type of question yet.''

''Let's chat about math, coding, and logic problems instead!" DeepSeek said.

At first, DeepSeek supplied information on Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who is critical of the Chinese government. However, this was eventually removed and replaced with another apology.

''Sorry, that's beyond my scope. Let's talk about something else,'' it said.

DeepSeek repeated that statement when asked about the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism who fled to India in 1959 after a failed rebellion against Chinese rule in Tibet.

“Yung quality ng kung anong sinasagot niya, depende na sa amount of information na pinag-aralan niya, yung training data, and yung sources noon and kung sino ang gumawa ng sources na yun,” said Jamael Jacob, a data privacy expert, in Raffy Tima's report on ''24 Oras'' on Wednesday.

(The quality of its answer depends on the amount of information it is studying, the training data, its sources, and the ones who fed the information.)

Experts say that AI is not perfect and makes “hallucinations” or made-up answers, so it is important to know the training data of DeepSeek.

“Kung ang ginagamit niyang data set is blatantly biased; for example, it tells us that the West Philippine Sea is theirs regardless of whether that claim is internationally accepted or not, di ba? So na-poison yung data set, ito yung dangerous use of AI,” said Department of Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary Jeffry Ian Dy.

(The data set is poisoned if the chatbot’s answer is blatantly biased; for example, it tells us that the West Philippine Sea is theirs regardless of whether that claim is internationally accepted or not. This is a dangerous use of AI.)

“AI is just a tool, so it can be used for disinformation. It can also be used for good,” he added.

Powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model, which its creators say "tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally,'' the artificial intelligence application has surged in popularity among U.S. users since it was released on January 10, according to app data research firm Sensor Tower.

DeepSeek says it uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent players' models.

US President Donald Trump on Monday said the Chinese app should act as a spur for American companies and said it was good that companies in China have come up with a cheaper, faster method of artificial intelligence.— Mariel Celine Serquiña/with Reuters/VBL, GMA Integrated News