Protect Your Students—Ban Deep-Seek AI — Minding The Campus

The newly released Deep-Seek artificial intelligence (AI) program, which is manufactured, owned, and operated within the sovereign bounds of the People’s Republic of China, has disrupted technology markets across the globe and raised new questions in the foreign policy fields of Great Power Competition. An often overlooked aspect of this newly emergent technology, however, is its effect on university research integrity, institutional confidentiality, and international student safety.

A system is made up of all of its constituent parts and operates within the biases imputed within it. This means that technology such as AI can direct, select, and control information.

While the emergence of AI and Chat-bot GPT has led the state of California to establish a new CSU Chat-bot Edu system, to integrate these new technologies into the higher education fields, and to discuss the implications of this new AI technology on students, faculty, and staff, China-based Deep Seek AI poses an entirely new risk and liability.

[RELATED: How Did AI Get So Biased in Favor of the Left?]

Indeed, under China’s National Security Law, all organizations, associations, and corporations are required to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is the primary authority within the People’s Republic of China:

All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.

This means that corporations such as Deep-Seek, which is a Hedge-Fund established corporation based in Hangzhou-Zhejiang, fall fully under the auspices of the CCP’s National Security Law.

While many readers may be familiar with the Great Firewall of China, which blocks access to Chinese Communist Party-censored (CCP) materials both domestically and internationally through pre-programmed technologically based systems, the CCP also operates what is termed the Golden Shield Project, which collects and collates information from across a wide array of sectors and is utilized for Civil-Military Fusion as well as national security collection and analysis.

Without going in-depth, the implications of this state-controlled technology on academic research integrity and confidential information within the American university system are clear. Personal information, financial data, emails, contacts, facial recognition, research, and proprietary work could all be routed back to China and used for a wide array of military, technological, financial, and economic purposes.

In addition, many international students studying, researching, and writing in the United States may be placed at severe risk. While academic freedom is protected here, controversial research is banned in China on certain topics such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Although the U.S. government and its legal system can protect these students while they are in the United States, American sovereign authority has no jurisdictional reach within China proper.

This means that students searching the internet, writing papers, sending e-mails, or utilizing any Deep Seek AI technology—which could record what is written and erased on a document—for any academic purpose may find themselves jailed, fined, or denied access to educational, career, health, and travel privileges. Close associates or family members are often punished for deviations from the CCP Party line.

This is a well-documented phenomenon that has been recurrent and increasing over the past several decades, and considering the value of the rich diversity of ideas, culture, and exchange that Chinese students bring to our university campuses, this is a pressing problem that demands attention.

The administrative policy solution to the liability that Deep-Seek AI poses to the American Higher Education system is a simple one from a risk management perspective.

All Deep-Seek AI technologies should be banned within American university systems and should not be permitted to operate within the wi-fi networks of American campuses. Students and research must be protected.

[RELATED: The Use and Misuse of AI in Higher Education Writing Courses]

This is one area where forward-thinking, proactive state legislators, university presidents, and academic administrators can take action to get ahead of the ball and protect their institutions and students. The solution to this very real issue is to utilize technologies such as Chat-bot Edu, which is designed to protect institutional integrity, confidentiality, and proprietary information for all campuses within California.

This will ensure that all the data and research conducted within the higher education institutions of California and the U.S. and the cross-pollination between universities will be contained within the domestically domiciled corporate servers such as Microsoft that are legally mandated to ensure that this information is secure.

While there may be considerable debate about the proper implementation of AI systems in American higher education—as well as their impact on critical thinking, creativity, employment, and the human condition—it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the risks of allowing Deep-Seek to operate freely on university campuses far outweigh any potential benefits.

Image: Deepseek_AI assistant by Trong Khiem Nguyen on Flickr