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As DeepSeek Upends the aI Industry, one Group is Urging Australia to Embrace The Opportunity
ulgreginald208 edited this page 2025-02-10 14:19:26 +02:00


One Australian company has discouraged personnel from utilizing the innovation, others are rushing for suggestions on its cybersecurity ramifications - while federal government ministers are advising caution.

But others have actually invited DeepSeek's arrival, requiring Australia to follow China's lead in developing powerful yet less energy-intensive AI technology.

In the days since the Chinese company introduced its R1 synthetic intelligence design and openly launched its chatbot and app, it has upended the AI industry.

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Several worldwide market leaders saw their market price drop after the launch, as DeepSeek showed AI might be established utilizing a portion of the cost and processing needed to train models such as ChatGPT or Meta's Llama.

Its arrival may signal a new market shift, but for federal government and kenpoguy.com organization, the impact is unclear. Whereas ChatGPT's 2022 arrival captured federal governments and services by surprise as staff started to try out the new AI innovation, hb9lc.org at least for setiathome.berkeley.edu the arrival of Deepseek, some had a playbook.

Business as usual

A spokesperson for Telstra stated the company had "a rigorous procedure to evaluate all AI tools, capabilities, and use cases in our business", consisting of a list of approved generative AI tools, and standards on how to utilize them.

For now at Telstra, DeepSeek is not authorized and its usage is not motivated (although it's not formally blocked).

"Our favored partner is MS Copilot, and we're rolling out 21,000 Copilot for Microsoft 365 licences to our workers."

Other companies looked for immediate guidance on whether DeepSeek should be adopted.

Major Australian cybersecurity firm CyberCX's executive director of cyber intelligence, Katherine Mansted, said customers had currently approached the company for advice on whether the innovation was safe.

"That's no surprise, due to the fact that it seems the entire world has actually been in a bit of a DeepSeek frenzy - both the economically and market likely and those with the security lens," Mansted said.

DeepSeek and federal government

CyberCX today took the uncommon step of quickly issuing advice recommending organisations, consisting of government departments and those storing sensitive details, strongly think about restricting access to DeepSeek on work gadgets.

"We understand that there is no proactive policy here from government ... We've been down this roadway before," Mansted stated. "We've had disputes about TikTok, about Chinese monitoring electronic cameras, about Huawei in the telco network, and we always act after the reality, not before the fact ... Here, especially since the hazards are around compromise of delicate information, in regards to any info that you put into this AI assistant: it's going straight to China.

"We believed we required to act faster this time."

Under federal AI policy implemented in September 2024, companies have till completion of February 2025 to release transparency files about their use of AI.

But understanding who makes choices on the specific usage of DeepSeek in the federal government has actually proved difficult. The lawyer general's department, that made the decision to ban TikTok utilize on government devices, referred questions to the Digital Transformation Agency, which in turn referred enquires to the Department of Home Affairs.

Home Affairs was asked on Thursday for its official policy and did not supply an action by the time of publication.

Familiar debates ...

A few of the reaction in Australia to DeepSeek is by now familiar. There have been calls to prohibit the technology, amidst concern over how the Chinese government may access user data - an echo of the days Huawei was banned from the NBN and 5G rollouts in Australia, and more just recently, of the debate over banning TikTok.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a strong critic of the China government, stated today that Australia "can not continue the present approach of reacting to each development". It called for a tech method covering AI that consisted of investing in sovereign AI capabilities.

The industry minister, Ed Husic, stated on Tuesday it was too early to decide on whether DeepSeek was a security threat.

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"If there is anything that provides a risk in the national interest, we will always keep an open mind and enjoy what happens. I believe it's too early to leap to conclusions on that," he stated. "But, once again, if we have to act, then responsible federal governments do."

He worried that Australia is "in the final stages" of planning its action and would develop its own regulative settings.

"The US is flagging their method. The EU has theirs. Canada likewise will have a different method. And our local partners too are looking at this," he stated.