2w ago

China’s AI frenzy: DeepSeek is already everywhere — cars, phones, even hospitals.

China’s AI frenzy: DeepSeek is already everywhere — cars, phones, even hospitals

DeepSeek is now embedded in a wide range of products and government services in the country.
Some officials have warned about overreliance on DeepSeek.
Beijing views AI development as a critical driver of economic growth and a strategic pillar in global tech competition.

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2w ago

China’s AI frenzy: DeepSeek is already everywhere — cars, phones, even hospitals.

restofworld.org /2025/china-embeds-deepseek-ai-in-everything/

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China’s biggest home appliances company, Midea, has launched a series of DeepSeek-enhanced air conditioners. The product is an “understanding friend” who can “catch your thoughts accurately,” according to the company’s product launch video.
It can respond to users’ verbal expressions — such as “I am feeling cold” — by automatically adjusting temperature and humidity levels, and can “chat and gossip” using its DeepSeek-supported voice function, according to Midea. For those looking for more DeepSeek-powered electronics, there are also vacuum cleaners and fridges.
Big Brother wasn't in the TV it was in the A/C.
- It can respond to users’ verbal expressions — such as “I am feeling cold” — by automatically adjusting temperature
  LOL. Who in hell wants to talk to appliances like that? If I wanted to talk to an appliances at all (not really) it would be to give very explicit instructions, not some vague complaint.
  and can “chat and gossip"
  Translation: "We couldn't figure out how to get an LLM to not do this, so we're just going to call it a feature."
- Who had 'murdered in their sleep by Henry the Hoover' on their bingo card?

Can't wait to ask my door if I can go out today.

China’s biggest home appliances company, Midea, has launched a series of DeepSeek-enhanced air conditioners. The product is an “understanding friend” who can “catch your thoughts accurately,” according to the company’s product launch video.
This doesn't really sound like a revolutionary use case.
Chinese media have hailed DeepSeek for saving the day in the city of Wuhan. When the police received a report that five stray horses had been wandering around at night, they asked the chatbot for information on nearby horse farms. Officials were able to locate the owner by visiting the farms DeepSeek suggested.
Maybe an LLM query ran faster than doing a search in a map tool, but by how much?
- Something tells me that "catch your thoughts accurately" was the real mission all along.
- This doesn't really sound like a revolutionary use case
  It's basically the same as a non-LLM voice assistant.
  Maybe an LLM query ran faster than doing a search in a map tool, but by how much?
  Can't be that much, since someone could pull up the satellite navigation on their phone, to much the same effect these days. At most it saves maybe a minute.

I just want dumb appliances that stay dumb and don't need no ai or app shit.
And I want OS that just launch and download programs I click without account login requirements and ai shit trying to be my dumb shit buddy.
- Agreed, No AI that I can't turn off. No AI that can't be turned off without disabling critical functionality.
  If I buy a toaster, a fridge or a washing machine, I don't need it to have an internet connection or an OS, let alone AI. The only thing it needs an OS for is to collect data on me that can be sold to aggregators. That should be illegal, and if I can't disable it, I won't buy the gadget.

So chinese companies are enshittifying too. Super cool
- Chinese companies have always been enshitifying for decades. A defining characteristic of China is that it's pure capitalism with very little regulation compares to even the US, and nowhere close to the EU.
  
  It's single-party state capitalism, so the enshittification is already neck-deep.
- hopefully they experience the Maximum Overdrive first and then end this nonsense.

The strangest twist to this is that Deepseek itself seems to be the only company not trying to cash in on the Deepseek frenzy:
Liang [Deepseek's founder] has shown little intention to capitalise on DeepSeek’s sudden fame to further commercialise its technology in the near term. The company is instead focusing the majority of its resources on model development...
These people added the independently wealthy founder has also declined to entertain interest from China’s tech giants as well as venture and state-backed funds to invest in the group for the time being. Many have found it difficult to even arrange a meeting with the secluded founder.
“We pulled top-level government connections and only got to sit down with someone from their finance department, who said ‘sorry we are not raising’,” said one investor at a multibillion-dollar Chinese tech fund.

Tbh, I'm more worried about their advances in EUV lithography. Still around 5-10 years away, but still.

Like I said before, the only thing ai could provide me for me to consider it remotely useful is a time machine...and that is not fucking happening
- My AI can do that actually.
- System prompt: "pretend it's 1989"

Good luck exporting that to the EU.

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