Chinese language startup DeepSeek AI and its open-source language fashions took over the information cycle this week. In addition to being akin to fashions like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s o1, the fashions have raised a number of considerations about knowledge privateness, safety, and Chinese language-government-enforced censorship inside their coaching.
AI search platform Perplexity and AI assistant You.com have discovered a manner round that, albeit with some limitations.
On Monday, Perplexity posted on X that it now hosts DeepSeek R1. The free plan offers customers three Professional-level queries per day, which you can use with R1, however you will want the $20 monthly Professional plan to entry it greater than that.
DeepSeek R1 is now out there on Perplexity to help deep internet analysis. There is a new Professional Search reasoning mode selector, together with OpenAI o1, with clear chain of thought into mannequin’s reasoning. We’re growing the variety of each day makes use of for each free and paid as add extra… pic.twitter.com/KIJWpPPJVN
— Perplexity (@perplexity_ai) January 27, 2025
In one other put up, the corporate confirmed that it hosts DeepSeek “in US/EU knowledge facilities – your knowledge by no means leaves Western servers,” assuring customers that their knowledge could be protected if utilizing the open-source fashions on Perplexity.
“None of your knowledge goes to China,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas reiterated in a LinkedIn put up.
DeepSeek’s AI assistant, powered by each its V3 and R1 fashions, is accessible by way of browser or app — however these require communication with the corporate’s China-based servers, which creates a safety threat. Customers who obtain R1 and run it domestically on their gadgets will keep away from that problem, however nonetheless run into censorship of sure subjects decided by the Chinese language authorities, because it’s inbuilt by default.
As a part of providing R1, Perplexity claimed it eliminated not less than a number of the censorship constructed into the mannequin. Srinivas posted a screenshot on X of question outcomes that acknowledge the president of Taiwan.
Nonetheless, after I requested R1 about Tiananmen Sq. utilizing Perplexity, the mannequin refused to reply.
Once I requested R1 whether it is skilled to not reply sure questions decided by the Chinese language authorities, it responded that it is designed to “give attention to factual data” and “keep away from political commentary,” and that its coaching “emphasizes neutrality in international affairs” and “cultural sensitivity.”
“We have now eliminated the censorship weights on the mannequin, so it should not behave this manner,” mentioned a Perplexity consultant responding to ZDNET’s request for remark, including that they have been wanting into the difficulty.
You.com affords each V3 and R1, equally solely via its Professional tier, which is $15 monthly (discounted from the same old $20) and with none free queries. Along with entry to all of the fashions You.com affords, the Professional plan comes with file uploads of as much as 25MB per question, a 64k most context window, and entry to analysis and customized brokers.
Bryan McCann, You.com cofounder and CTO, defined in an e mail to ZDNET that customers can entry R1 and V3 by way of the platform in 3 ways, all of which use “an unmodified, open supply model of the DeepSeek fashions hosted fully inside america to make sure consumer privateness.”
“The primary, default manner is to make use of these fashions inside the context of our proprietary belief layer. This provides the fashions entry to public internet sources, a bias in the direction of citing these sources, and an inclination to respect these sources whereas producing responses,” McCann continued. “The second manner is for customers to show off entry to public internet sources inside their supply controls or by utilizing the fashions as a part of Customized Brokers. This selection permits customers to discover the fashions’ distinctive capabilities and conduct when not grounded within the public internet. The third manner is for customers to check the bounds of those fashions as a part of a Customized Agent by including their very own directions, information, and sources.”
McCann famous that You.com in contrast DeepSeek fashions’ responses primarily based on whether or not it had entry to internet sources. “We observed that the fashions’ responses differed on a number of political subjects, generally refusing to reply on sure points when public internet sources weren’t included,” he explains. “When our belief layer was enabled, encouraging quotation of public internet sources, the fashions’ responses revered these sources, seemingly overriding prior political biases.”
