'Godfather of AI' issues stark warning over use of Chinese AI DeepSeek

The 'Godfather of AI' and other artificial intelligence experts have issued a warning for users of DeepSeek AI.

We don't need ‘experts’ to warn us about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and even if we hadn't seen the horrors of movies like The Terminator, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and M3GAN, we had our own fears about AI. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that jobs could be put at risk by AI, while the ramifications of spreading misinformation through inaccuracy are also obvious.

There’s genuine panic that it's only a matter of time until AI rises up and overthrows its human overlords - leading to the extinction of the human race.

AI is never out of the news, but in the latest headlines, the US industry has been thrown into turmoil thanks to the emergence of China's DeepSeek AI. DeepSeek looks like it can do what America's AI can do...at a fraction of the cost.

Although President Donald Trump sees DeepSeek as the 'wakeup call' Silicon Valley needs, others are less likely to be smiling. Chipmaker Nvidia saw $600 billion wiped off its market value, while there are valid concerns that the AI bubble is about to burst.

There are many who can claim the title of being the 'Godfather' of AI, and among them is Yoshua Bengio. The Canadian computer scientist is a pioneer of artificial neural networks and deep learning but has a stark warning for the potential of DeepSeek.

Speaking to The Guardian, Bengio said that DeepSeek could force America's hand: "It’s going to mean a closer race, which usually is not a good thing from the point of view of AI safety."

Bengio then pointed to OpenAI's promise that it's going to accelerate ChatGPT releases: "If you imagine a competition between two entities and one thinks they’re way ahead, then they can afford to be more prudent and still know that they will stay ahead.

"Whereas if you have a competition between two entities and they think that the other is just at the same level, then they need to accelerate. Then maybe they don’t give as much attention to safety.”

Bengio's musings came ahead of the publication of the first full International AI Safety report. Compiled by 96 experts and other 'Godfather' of AI Geoffrey Hinton, Bengio was commissioned by the UK government to oversee the report.

If you weren't already concerned, more advanced AI models can apparently create step-by-step guides on how to create deadly pathogens. Bengio summarized: "These tools are becoming easier and easier to use by non-experts, because they can decompose a complicated task into smaller steps that everyone can understand, and then they can interactively help you get them right. And that’s very different from using, say, Google search."

Bengio's worries were shared by Michael Wooldridge, a professor of the foundations of AI at Oxford University, who claimed in a separate piece to The Guardian that data could be shared with the Chinese state: "I think it’s fine to download it and ask it about the performance of Liverpool football club or chat about the history of the Roman empire, but would I recommend putting anything sensitive or personal or private on them? Absolutely not … Because you don’t know where the data goes."

The pair were joined by the United Nations’ Dame Wendy Hall, a member of a high-level advisory body on AI, who concluded: "You can’t get away from the fact that if you are a Chinese tech company dealing with information you are subject to the Chinese government’s rules on what you can and cannot say."

Expect plenty more chatter when the next global AI summit takes place on February 10 and 11 in Paris.