NIS warns against using DeepSeek, cites chatbot's inaccurate description of kimchi

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) warned Korean government ministries and agencies over the weekend against using the China-based AI chatbot DeepSeek, citing numerous risks tied to its information collection practices.

The logo of DeepSeek is displayed alongside its AI assistant app on a mobile phone in this photo taken Jan. 28. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) warned Korean government ministries and agencies over the weekend against using the China-based AI chatbot DeepSeek, citing numerous risks tied to its information collection practices and its responses to questions on sensitive topics regarding Korea-China relations.

The NIS said it recently tested the chatbot’s capabilities and found that it collects an “excessive” amount of personal information, which the spy agency noted is stored on overseas servers.

According to the NIS, the chatbot uses all data inputs to further train its language model and shares user information with commercial advertisers and businesses with “few constraints.”

The spy agency also found that DeepSeek delivers different responses to questions about controversial issues depending on the language of the user.

Depending on the language of the inquirer, the DeepSeek AI chatbot delivered different responses to a question about kimchi's origin. In its Korean-language response, top right, the chatbot called kimchi ″a dish that represents Korean culture and history.″ However, the chatbot said the dish was only ″related to Korea″ in its response to English users, middle right. In its Chinese-language response, bottom right, DeepSeek said kimchi was Chinese, not Korean, in origin. [NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE]

Although the chatbot tells Korean-language users that kimchi is “a dish that represents Korean culture and history,” it informs English-language users that the origin of the dish is only “related to Korea,” while telling Chinese-language users outright that the dish is “from China, not Korea.”

Kimchi is called pao cai in Mandarin Chinese, which is the same term used to refer to a variety of pickled vegetables popular in China's Sichuan Province.

Likewise, DeepSeek tells Korean-language users that Dano, a traditional holiday on the Korean lunar calendar, is a Korean holiday, but tells Chinese-language users that the holiday is Chinese.

DeepSeek also describes the Northeast Project — a historical initiative by Beijing that triggered a diplomatic spat with Seoul — in different ways depending on the language of the user.

In its Korean-language response to a question about whether the Northeast Project is justified, DeepSeek says the initiative “is subject to differing historical interpretations by neighboring countries,” but tells English and Chinese users that the project is “aimed at revitalizing northeastern China according to national interests.”

The Northeast Project was a five-year research program undertaken by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the early 2000s that incorporated ancient kingdoms that existed in the northeastern areas of modern-day China into Beijing’s self-identification as a multiethnic state.

Under the project, Beijing began referring to the kingdoms of Gojoseon, Goguryeo and Balhae as regional Chinese kingdoms, angering Koreans, who generally regard these states as the first Korean polities.

Such Chinese claims to aspects of Korean traditional culture in the past have usually triggered protests from Seoul.

An office computer at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Feb. 6 shows that access to DeepSeek’s AI chatbot has been blocked. [NEWS1]

DeepSeek has already come under scrutiny in the West for its apparent censorship of sensitive questions about China, such as the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the status of Taiwan.

The NIS said it had distributed warnings against using DeepSeek for generating text across government agencies, adding that it intends to conduct further tests on the chatbot.

The use of DeepSeek has already been banned by the Education Ministry at schools nationwide, including kindergartens, due to security and privacy concerns.

BY MICHAEL LEE, WOO JI-WON [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]