3 interesting patterns coming out of regulatory responses to DeepSeek...
The politics around DeepSeek is fascinating to study.
As a side hobby, I've been tracking regulatory and government reactions to DeepSeek at https://www.note2map.com/share?deepseek_regulation_tracker
Below is a snapshot as of 17 February 2025*
It's still very early phase but 3 interesting patterns are already standing out to me:
1️⃣ Most of the current activity thus far are driven by the relevant data & privacy regulator. It goes to show that data & privacy law continue to dominate the AI regulation landscape (in place of or in addition to any AI-specific law).
2️⃣ Across-the-board market bans or suspensions are still rare. Only Italy and South Korea are currently reported to have banned and suspended DeepSeek (respectively). Italy is already known to have a proactive privacy regulatory (i.e. the Garante), while South Korea has been one of the more active AI regulatory powerhouses in Asia (e.g. recent passing of AI Basic Act + strong focus on tackling deepfake abuse). Gotta pay attention to these markets!
3️⃣ A pattern of 'orange' investigations throughout *civil law* Europe, contrasted with a pattern of 'red' public sector bans in the *common law* world of US, Canada, India, Australia. This is by far the most intriguing pattern to me (and I'm still researching why). Coincidence or not?
That's it for now! Comment below if you'd like to see regular DeepSeek map updates like this. Personally, I find them useful in visualising emerging enforcement patterns and geopolitics around AI. Perhaps I'll also create a similar (legacy) map for ChatGPT, and then compare that with the DeepSeek map. Maybe something spicy will come out of that.
The below screenshot will probably go out of date very soon, so refer to the live tracker** above for latest updates.
--Footnotes--
* Updates based on global English-language news sources found available on the public internet. Curated in my own personal time as a hobby. It's possible my newsfeed may be subject to bias or incomplete data which I might not be aware of. If so, DM me if I'm misrepresenting or missing anything! See the live tracker to view the relevant news updates I relied on each targeted region.
** Map created on my own map building tracker platform Note2Map (www[.]note2map[.]com). Not trying to plug but sharing in case people here are looking for a place to build their own trackers.
