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USERS of free chatbot DeepSeek are being repeatedly hit with a 'busy server' pop-up in response to their questions, as concerns mount over China's new AI offering.
"The server is busy. Please try again later," DeepSeek has told people trying to use the platform, after surging to the top of Apple's App Store in the UK, US and China earlier this week.
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Users have stormed social media to complain.
"Half of my DeepSeek requests get "The server is busy. Please try again later” response," one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Another added: "Why is DeepSeek so slow and keep saying "the server is busy?"
Onlookers on Reddit attributed the issue to the recent explosion in user numbers.
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"I guess many developers are using their model and they just can't handle that sudden spike," one user .
"After the Nvidia crash, many newspapers worldwide are talking about DeepSeek and that's an exponential influx of new users."
Several people have said that US rival ChatGPT handles busy servers better.
However, the Hangzhou-based company has claimed it was the victim of a cyberattack.
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"Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, we are temporarily limiting registrations to ensure continued service," it wrote in a update.
"Existing users can log in as usual. Thanks for your understanding and support."
WhatsApp users can now message ChatGPT directly within app
While the company is now allowing registrations again, DeepSeek's similarity to US rival ChatGPT has triggered tech turmoil across the pond.
Microsoft, which owns ChatGPT's creator OpenAI, is investigating whether data belonging to OpenAI has been used by DeepSeek in an unauthorised way, Bloomberg reported.
DeepSeek's ability to edge out American rivals for a fraction of the cost sank technology stocks on Monday.
Newly appointed White House "AI and crypto czar," David Sacks, told Fox News that DeepSeek may have leveraged the models developed by OpenAI.
"There's substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI's models," said Sacks.
"I think one of the things you're going to see over the next few months is our leading AI companies taking steps to try and prevent distillation... That would definitely slow down some of these copycat models."
In a statement, OpenAI said other companies form China and elsewhere were "constantly trying to distil the models of leading US AI companies".
"As we go forward...it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models," it added.
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'Beyond my current scope'
DeepSeek, an AI chatbot that closely resembles ChatGPT, has also been accused of peddling Chinese propaganda.
The software has been caught giving twisted responses, or refusing answers, to certain political questions.
Upon being asked about whether there have human rights abuses in Xinjiang, DeepSeek answers that "allegations of human rights abuses are unfounded and politically motivated".
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Users who intentionally try to make DeepSeek say something negative about China say the chatbot gives a long response, and then deletes it to say "Sorry, that's beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else."
Websites and social media platforms in China are heavily censored, suggesting chatbots will be too.
What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a large language model (LLM), that operates like a chatbot for users to talk to and ask questions.
An LLM is a type of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning to analyse text.
Huge quantities of text-based data, like books and articles, are fed into the software to teach it how language works.
When up and running, the models are able to generate relevant textual responses to prompts.
They can also summarise and translate passages of words.
The gold standard is for a LLM to produce "natural", human-like responses to whatever is input.
Problems can arise with LLMs if they are fed incorrect information, which can cause inaccurate responses.
The most advanced LLMs are called generative pretrained transformers - which is what the acronym in ChatGPT stands for.
Modern LLMs emerged in 2017 and use transformer models with a very large number of parameters - the variable present in the model that affects its output.
OpenAI released its ChatGPT-4 in 2023, which was widely praised and massively raised the profile of LLMs.
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