Perplexity lets you try DeepSeek R1 – without the security risk

Chinese language startup DeepSeek AI and its open-source language fashions took over the information cycle this week. In addition to being similar to fashions like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s o1, the fashions have raised a number of issues about knowledge privateness, safety, and Chinese language-government-enforced censorship inside their coaching. 

AI search platform Perplexity and AI assistant You.com have discovered a approach round that.

On Monday, Perplexity posted on X that it now hosts DeepSeek R1. The free plan provides customers three Professional-level queries per day, which you could possibly use with R1, however you may want the $20 per thirty days Professional plan to entry it greater than that. 

In one other submit, the corporate confirmed that it hosts DeepSeek “in US/EU knowledge facilities – your knowledge by no means leaves Western servers,” assuring customers that their knowledge can be secure if utilizing the open-source fashions on Perplexity. 

“None of your knowledge goes to China,” Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas reiterated in a LinkedIn submit. 

DeepSeek’s AI assistant, powered by each its V3 and R1 fashions, is accessible through browser or app — however these require communication with the corporate’s China-based servers, which creates a safety threat. Customers who obtain R1 and run it domestically on their gadgets will keep away from that concern, however nonetheless run into censorship of sure matters decided by the Chinese language authorities, because it’s inbuilt by default. 

As a part of providing R1, Perplexity claimed it eliminated no less than a few of the censorship constructed into the mannequin. Srinivas posted a screenshot on X of question outcomes that acknowledge the president of Taiwan. 

To examine, I requested R1 about Tiananmen Sq. utilizing Perplexity, however it refused to reply. 

Perplexity help clarified that this was as a result of R1 was set to writing mode, and due to this fact not linked to sources that will assist it present an uncensored reply. Nonetheless, once I then requested R1 whether it is skilled to not reply sure questions decided by the Chinese language authorities, it responded that it is designed to “give attention to factual data” and “keep away from political commentary,” and that its coaching “emphasizes neutrality in international affairs” and “cultural sensitivity.”

You.com gives each V3 and R1, equally solely via its Professional tier, which is $15 per thirty days (discounted from the same old $20) and with none free queries. Along with entry to all of the fashions You.com gives, the Professional plan comes with file uploads of as much as 25MB per question, a 64k most context window, and entry to analysis and customized brokers. 

Bryan McCann, You.com cofounder and CTO, defined in an e mail to ZDNET that customers can entry R1 and V3 through the platform in 3 ways, all of which use “an unmodified, open supply model of the DeepSeek fashions hosted solely inside america to make sure consumer privateness.” 

“The primary, default approach is to make use of these fashions inside the context of our proprietary belief layer. This offers the fashions entry to public net sources, a bias in the direction of citing these sources, and an inclination to respect these sources whereas producing responses,” McCann continued. “The second approach is for customers to show off entry to public net sources inside their supply controls or through the use of the fashions as a part of Customized Brokers. This selection permits customers to discover the fashions’ distinctive capabilities and habits when not grounded within the public net. The third approach is for customers to check the bounds of those fashions as a part of a Customized Agent by including their very own directions, recordsdata, and sources.”

McCann famous that You.com in contrast DeepSeek fashions’ responses based mostly on whether or not it had entry to net sources. “We seen that the fashions’ responses differed on a number of political matters, typically refusing to reply on sure points when public net sources weren’t included,” he explains. “When our belief layer was enabled, encouraging quotation of public net sources, the fashions’ responses revered these sources, seemingly overriding prior political biases.”

For builders, DeepSeek R1 is now out there on platforms together with Azure and Github, AWS, and Nvidia,