DOST, DICT won’t ban DeepSeek, AI chatbot
Credit to Author: Ranier Allan Ronda| Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0800
MANILA, Philippines — Filipino technologists, researchers in emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, and even ordinary tech-savvy internet users should be allowed to use and explore the DeepSeek R1 AI chatbot developed by Chinese startup DeepSeek, government officials said.
Scientist Enrico Paringit, executive director of the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD), said that there was no immediate danger in using or engaging with the DeepSeek R1 large language model (LLM), and saw no need for government to regulate or ban its use by organizations or individuals.
Paringit pointed out that being open source and offered free to use by DeepSeek, the application is a great benefit to people who want to study or look into the use cases of AI LLMs.
“It’s offered to the public for free, and it’s also available in many levels. It can be accessed online, it can also be installed in your own system, offline. You can make your own machine, like an AI machine,” he said.
“There are really opportunities because it provides access to AI machines. Previously, when we just had the AI chatbots ChatGPT, Microsoft (Windows) AutoPilot, Gemini (Google), it was not so accessible. Because you had to pay for more advanced features, more advanced capabilities,” Paringit pointed out.
The DOST executive said that Filipino AI researchers and developers would do well in exploring the technology.
“(From) a researcher’s perspective. I think it’s worth exploring its capabilities. But they should be deeply examined for reliability and integrity,” Paringit said.
“It is to the best interest of advancing knowledge to allow it to be used. But for certain applications and operations, it should be examined further, its operational use should be scrutinized,” he stressed.
Paringit said DeepSeek’s development of an AI chatbot that is equal to, if not better than, those developed at huge cost by big US technology titans, served even to inspire local efforts to develop similar AI LLMs despite facing resource limitations.
He revealed the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) had also developed an AI chatbot for Filipinos – the iTanong project.
Paringit said that he knew Filipino AI developers are not limiting themselves to just using AI chatbots, but were gung-ho in embarking on projects to develop similar AI chatbots and LLMs.
He said that as much as one-fourth of the research and development proposals they received for funding – from academe-based researchers and technologists and were approved for funding by DOST-PCIEERD last year – were projects on AI.
The DeepSeek disruption is currently facing pushback from countries with strong anti-Chinese sentiment, with some countries already issuing a ban on its use by citizens.
Australia has banned DeepSeek AI services in all government systems and devices, while Italy’s privacy regulator has ordered it to be blocked to protect consumers’ data.
The announcement of the development of the DeepSeek R1 AI chatbot last week caused a one-day crash in the tech sector of the US markets, led by US multinational firm Nvidia, which is the world leader in development and manufacture of GPUs and microchips for AI and cloud computing; Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Microsoft, Meta (Facebook) and Amazon.
Information and Communications Technology Secretary Ivan John Uy had also aired his resistance to any moves to preemptively regulate AI use.
“Over-legislation can stymie innovation, and that is something we don’t want to happen. It has to be approached very, very carefully. We have to look at how the rest of the world is addressing this (first),” Uy said in the Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast forum last Jan. 29.
“AI is not an issue that is only in the Philippines. It’s all over the world,” he said.
“We do not want to over-regulate, so much so that it destroys our opportunities to utilize this technology, but at the same time, we have to provide good governance policies in order to ensure safety, in order to ensure ethical use of the technology… Basically, AI for good and not to spread misinformation, or disinformation, not used to destroy, but used to build, constructive and not destructive,” Uy explained.