A group of Republican senators is pressing the U.S. Commerce Department for an investigation into potential national security threats posed by DeepSeek, a Chinese company responsible for the open-source AI model known as R1. The senators raised concerns that DeepSeek’s R1 model could compromise U.S. user data and support Chinese military and intelligence operations. The bipartisan letter, initiated by Senator Ted Budd and joined by other key senators, expresses alarm over the model's capability to generate harmful content and its lack of comprehensive safety testing. They highlighted risks including the public accessibility of model weights, which could lead to vulnerabilities and exploitation. Experts like Chris Anderson from ByteNova AI warned that without proper oversight, deploying such AI models could pose severe risks to sensitive data and national security. This inquiry is part of growing scrutiny and regulation of foreign AI technologies, amidst fears of their implications in broader geopolitical conflicts, particularly in technology between the U.S. and China.

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