The United States Navy has issued guidance to its personnel advising against the utilization of artificial intelligence technology developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek, as reported by CNBC.
In a communication disseminated via email to its service members on Friday, the Navy articulated that DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence should not be employed “in any capacity” due to “potential security and ethical concerns associated with the model’s origin and application.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Navy verified the authenticity of the email, highlighting its connection to the Department of the Navy’s Chief Information Officer’s generative AI policy.
This announcement follows DeepSeek’s recent launch of its advanced reasoning AI model, designated R1, which is positioned as a competitor to technology produced by OpenAI.
The DeepSeek model is open source, allowing any AI developer the opportunity to utilize it.
The DeepSeek application has recently ascended to the top of Apple’s App Store, overtaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and has received commendations from industry experts for its performance and reasoning capabilities.
DeepSeek’s developments have caused significant fluctuations in the capital markets, stemming from concerns that forthcoming AI products may necessitate less capital-intensive infrastructure than previously anticipated by Wall Street.
In late December, DeepSeek reported that its large language model was created in merely two months at a cost of less than $6 million, despite the United States enacting curbs on chip exports to China on three occasions over the past three years.
This expenditure represents a mere fraction of the financial commitments made by entities such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, among others.