The ancient dish of kimchi was at the centre of a warning by South Korea’s spy agency over Chinese AI app DeepSeek.
The National Intelligence Service has accused DeepSeek of “excessively” collecting personal data and using all input data to train itself, and questioned the app’s responses to questions relating to issues of national pride.
It cited one such question as asking for the origin of kimchi - a spicy, fermented dish that is a staple in South Korea and has been eaten for more than 3000 year.
When asked about it in Korean, the app said kimchi is a Korean dish, the NIS said.
Asked the same question in Chinese, it said the dish originated from China, it added.
The origin of kimchi has at times been a source of contention between South Koreans and Chinese social media users in recent years.
It is eaten around the world, particularly in South Korean communities such as in New Malden, south west London, which is believed to be one of the most densely populated areas of South Koreans outside of Korea.
DeepSeek has also been accused of censoring responses to political questions such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, which prompt the app to suggest changing the subject: “Let’s talk about something else.”
The NIS said it sent an official notice to government agencies last week urging them to take security precautions over the artificial intelligence app.
“Unlike other generative AI services, it has been confirmed that chat records are transferable as it includes a function to collect keyboard input patterns that can identify individuals and communicate with Chinese companies’ servers such as volceapplog.com,” the NIS said in a statement issued on Sunday.
Some government ministries in South Korea have blocked access to the app, citing security concerns, joining Australia and Taiwan in warning about or placing restrictions on DeepSeek.
The NIS said DeepSeek gives advertisers unlimited access to user data and stores South Korean users’ data in Chinese servers. Under Chinese law, the Chinese government would be able to access such information when requested, the agency added.
DeepSeek has emerged as a major challenger to other AI tools such as ChatGPT, sending stocks in some artificial intelligence companies in the West falling sharply before recovering at least partially.
When asked about moves by South Korean government departments to block DeepSeek, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a briefing on February 6 that the Chinese government attached great importance to data privacy and security and protected it in accordance with the law.
World leaders and technology executives were convening in Paris on Monday to discuss how to safely embrace artificial intelligence at a time of mounting resistance to red tape that businesses say stifles innovation.
Eagerness to rein in AI has waned since previous summits in Britain and South Korea that focused world powers' attention on technology's risks after ChatGPT's viral launch in 2022.
As Donald Trump tears up his predecessor's AI guardrails to promote US competitiveness, pressure has built on the European Union to pursue a lighter-touch approach to AI to help keep European firms in the tech race.
"If we want growth, jobs and progress, we must allow innovators to innovate, builders to build and developers to develop," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an op-ed in Le Monde ahead of the summit.
