Chen Deli, senior researcher at DeepSeek, has admitted at a state conference who is “extremely positive about technology, but pessimistic about its impact on society.”
It is the first time that a representative of the Chinese company has spoken publicly since February, when its founder met with Xi Jinping after provoking that world earthquake with the launch of R1. And he has done it with that pessimistic outlook.
Why is it important. This message comes from a company that the Chinese government has turned into a symbol of technological capacity and resilience in the face of US sanctions.
That one of its leaders recognizes great risks for employment is a notable turn in a country where the official discourse is usually triumphalist.
The facts. Chen participated in the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen along with the heads of five other companies known in China as “the six little dragons” of AI.
His diagnosis has a gloomy tone: in one or two years, AI will be good enough to start replacing human jobs. In a decade or two it could take care of the rest. “Society could face an enormous challenge,” has said. “Tech companies need to take on the role of advocate.”
Between the lines. This is not an American CEO peddling apocalypse smoke to inflate his valuation. In China, the State regulates technology with a firm hand.
When Sam Altman says that AI will “probably lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be big companies,” it sounds like marketing. When a DeepSeek executive says it at a conference organized by the government, after many months of silence and after its founder met with Xi, it sounds like a party line.
The context. DeepSeek exploded in January with DeepSeek-R1a low-cost, open-source language model that was on par with American leaders. Since then, absolute exit.
The founder, Liang Wenfeng, has appeared only once in all this time: at a televised symposium with Xi Jinping in February. Neither Liang nor the company has made public comments since then, and they have skipped all major Chinese tech conferences.
Yes, but. While sending this message of caution, DeepSeek is in the process of consolidating itself as a cornerstone of the Chinese AI ecosystem. Chip manufacturers such as Cambricon and Huawei have developed hardware compatible with their models.
In September, the company launched an “experimental” version of its V3 modelnotable not so much for its efficiency as for creating an alternative to NVIDIA’s CUDA API and its support for Chinese GPUs. In August, the simple announcement of a model optimized for national chips shares of the sector skyrocketed in the local market.
And now what. Xi Jinping has proposed a little over a week ago on the APEC forum that there should be a global body that governs AI, making it “a public good for the international community.”
Now a DeepSeek representative talks about AI as a potential threat that requires a unified approach from the technology sector. The narrative is shifting from triumphalism to preventive regulation.
Featured image | Xataka, DeepSeek
In Xataka | We believed that no open model could outperform GPT-5. A Chinese startup proves us wrong
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings