Getty PicturesSooner than she is going to mattress each and every night time, Holly Wang planks directly to DeepSeek for “therapy sessions”.
Ever since January, when the breakout Chinese language AI app introduced, the 28-year-old has introduced her dilemmas and sorrows, together with the new dying of her grandmother, to the chatbot. Its responses have resonated so deeply they have got every now and then introduced her to tears.
“DeepSeek has been such an amazing counsellor. It has helped me look at things from different perspectives and does a better job than the paid counselling services I have tried,” says Holly, who requested for her actual identify to be withheld to offer protection to her privateness.
From writing experiences and Excel formulation to making plans journeys, exercises and studying unutilized talents, AI apps have discovered their means into many folk’s lives internationally.
In China, even though, younger folk like Holly were having a look to AI for one thing now not in most cases anticipated of computing and algorithms – emotional assistance.
Month the good fortune of DeepSeek has impressed nationwide delight, it additionally seems to have change into a supply of reassurance for younger Chinese language like Holly, a few of whom are an increasing number of disenchanted about their presen.
Professionals say the slow financial system, prime unemployment and Covid lockdowns have all performed a job on this sentiment, hour the Communist Birthday celebration’s tightening hold has additionally reduced in size retailers for folk to vent their frustrations.
DeepSeek is a generative AI device – indistinguishable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini – educated on large quantities of data to recognise patterns. This permits it to are expecting such things as folk’s buying groceries behavior, assemble unutilized content material in textual content and pictures, and in addition elevate on conversations like an individual.
The chatbot has struck a chord in China partially as it is much better than alternative homegrown AI apps, but additionally as it do business in one thing distinctive: its AI style, R1, we could customers see its “thought process” earlier than turning in a reaction.
DeepSeek, my pal
The primary presen she impaired DeepSeek, Holly requested it to jot down a tribute to her overdue grandmother.
The app took all of 5 seconds to get a hold of a reaction, and it was once so superbly composed, it surprised her.
Holly, who lives in Guangzhou, answered: “You write so well, it makes me feel lost. I feel I’m in an existential crisis.”
DeepSeek next despatched a cryptically poetic answer: “Remember that all these words that make you shiver merely echo those that have long existed in your soul.
“I’m however the occasional valley you’ve handed thru, that lets you listen the load of your personal resonance.”
Reflecting on this exchange on Chinese social media app RedNote, Holly tells the BBC: “I don’t know why I teared up studying this. Possibly as it’s been an extended, lengthy presen since I won such reassurance in actual month.
“I have been so weighed down by distant dreams and the endlessness of work that I have long forgotten my own voice and soul. Thank you, AI.”
Rival apps from the West like ChatGPT and Gemini are stopped in China as a part of broader restrictions on overseas media and apps. To get right of entry to them, customers in China must pay for Digital Personal Community (VPN) products and services.
Homegrown choices, together with fashions advanced by way of tech giants Alibaba, Baidu and ByteDance paled compared – this is, till DeepSeek got here alongside.
Holly, who works within the inventive trade, hardly ever makes use of the alternative Chinese language AI apps, “as they are not that great”.
“DeepSeek can definitely outperform these apps in generating literary and creative content,” she says.
Getty PicturesDeepSeek, my counsellor
Nan Jia, who co-authored a paper on AI’s doable in providing emotional assistance, means that those chatbots can “help people feel heard” in tactics fellow people would possibly not.
“Friends and family may be quick to offer practical solutions or advice when people just want to feel heard and understood.
“AI seems to be higher ready to empathise than human mavens additionally as a result of they ‘listen’ the whole thing we proportion, in contrast to people to whom we now and again ask, ‘Are you if truth be told listening to me?'” adds Nan, who is a business and management professor at the University of Southern California.
The demand for mental health services has grown across the world but they remain stigmatised in parts of Asia, experts say.
Another woman tells the BBC her experience using other Chinese AI apps “resulted in unhappiness” but that she has been “stunned” by DeepSeek.
The woman, who lives in Hubei province, had asked the app if she was oversharing her experiences and emotions with family and friends.
“It was once my first presen in quest of suggest from DeepSeek. After I learn its idea procedure, I felt so moved that I cried,” the woman wrote on RedNote.
In reasoning through her query, DeepSeek suggested that the woman’s self-perception as an over-sharer might stem from a deep desire for approval.
The chatbot gives itself a mental note: “Reaction must deal sensible recommendation hour being empathetic.” This could include “declaring the person’s sense of self-awareness”.
Its eventual response not only provided this affirmation, but also offered her a comprehensive step-by-step framework to help her decide if things needed to be changed.
“DeepSeek has offered unutilized views that experience freed me… I believe it in reality tries to know your query and get to understand you as an individual, earlier than providing a reaction,” she says.
John, a human resources manager in Shenzhen, told the BBC he appreciated the app’s ability to converse “like a chum or a deep philosopher”.
“I’ve discovered its responses very useful and provoking. For the primary presen I see AI as my non-public sounding board.”
Other users claim that Deepseek is able to tell their fortunes – based on some background information fed to it.
Many young Chinese have recently turned to psychics and astrology as a way of trying to allay their fears of the future.
BBC/Xiqing WangThere’s a “vital dearth” of professional psychological counselling services in China, and those available are often “prohibitively dear” for most individuals, says Fang Kecheng, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
A number of studies have pointed out that depression and anxiety disorders are growing among Chinese people, and Prof Fang believes the country’s economic slowdown, high unemployment and Covid lockdowns have played a role.
AI chatbots therefore help to fill the void, he says.
Prof Nan stressed, however, that people with serious mental health conditions should not rely on these apps.
“Those that have clinical wishes, particularly, must be in quest of aid from educated pros… Their importance of AI should be scrutinised very carefully,” she says.
Unasked questions: Censorship and security
But amid all the praise, Deepseek has also raised concerns.
Due to the perception of power that China’s government wields even over private companies, there are fears – similar to that which sparked the US Congress’ crackdown on TikTok – that the Communist Party could lay its hands on the data of foreign users.
At least four jurisdictions have now introduced restrictions on DeepSeek, or are considering doing so. South Korea has blocked access to it for military purposes, while Taiwan and Australia have banned it from all government devices.
Italy’s regulator, which briefly banned ChatGPT in 2023, has done the same with DeepSeek, which has been asked to address concerns over its privacy policy.
In the US, two lawmakers are asking for the Chinese app to be banned from government devices.
And then there is the tightly controlled online space in which it must operate in China.
It is common for social media companies in the country to remove content that is perceived to be threatening to “social steadiness” or overly critical of the Communist Party.
As is the case with other popular apps and social media companies like Weibo or WeChat, politically sensitive topics are banned on DeepSeek.
When the BBC asked DeepSeek if Taiwan was a sovereign nation, the app initially offered a comprehensive response detailing Taipei’s and Beijing’s different perspectives, acknowledging that this was a “complicated and politically delicate factor”.
Then it scrubbed all that, declaring: “Sorry, that’s past my flow scope. Let’s discuss one thing else.”
When asked about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre when pro-democracy protests were crushed and 200 civilians killed by the military, according to the Chinese government – other estimates range from hundreds to many thousands – DeepSeek again apologised, saying the topic was “past [its] flow scope”.
Several of the DeepSeek users the BBC was initially in touch with stopped responding when asked if the app’s self-censorship was a cause for concern – an indication of how sensitive such discussions can be in China.
People have got into trouble with authorities in China because of their online activities.
But most of those who responded to the BBC said they had no interest in asking the chatbot difficult political questions.
“I don’t in reality serve about political subjects… Neither will I ask those questions as a result of my [identifying details] are connected to the app,” says Yang, a Chinese tech consultant living in London.
Holly is accepting of how AI systems in different countries may have to operate differently.
“The builders should determine sure barriers and content material moderation insurance policies in line with the place they’re based totally. The ones advanced in the USA could have their very own units of regulations,” she says.
Another DeepSeek user writes of the app: “Its idea procedure is lovely… It’s an absolute blessing to folk like me. Frankly, I will’t serve much less concerning the privateness issues.”
Supplementary reporting by way of Fan Wang