Looking on the bright side of AI: seeking the good in DeepSeek

At the end of January 2025, one of my friends from China sent me a note on the social messenger service WeChat: “You must read this article!” Read it carefully! It was an article on Deepseek, the Chinese chatbot propelled by AI, on a public media account WeChat.

Unfortunately, two years ago, WeChat sent a clause on privacy that I did not choose to accept, so since then, I have never been able to open these public accounts. I use WeChat more and more.

So my friends must convert WeChat articles to PDF or transmit them to another social media platform before seeing them. My friend could not wait for my answer and said to me frankly: “My conclusion is only time, the AI ​​can completely replace human writing. Some of the things we human are the most proud, we don’t really matter because we lost them a long time ago without realizing it. »»

I knew he was serious. And so I started looking seriously Deepseek. I had always thought that AI could not replace artistic creations – these texts generated by AI, music, drawings and videos tend to repel people after being watched several times.

I was in a trance, shocked by his “creativity”.

But this time, honestly speaking, after reading Wuxia novels (Chinese stories about Kung-fu knights) and some modern poems generated by Deepseek, as a fan of pure and hard literature that I was in a trance, shocked by its “creativity”.

Obviously, his ability to manage the Chinese context is much more robust than Chatgpt, just like WeChat is better than Facebook for the Chinese context.

Deepseek, like WeChat, has the limits because of its Chinese characteristics. Unsurprisingly, this automatically avoids all the subjects sensitive to which you may think, such as politics, history, etc.

Interestingly, his advice on participation in the churches of the house are not to avoid them, but to keep a low profile. And he recognizes that this is a response to “policies at the top and countermeasures below”. Apparently, China’s AI also has the wisdom of “Chinese” survival.

We know that Deepseek has a good understanding of taboo subjects, but it is not allowed to tell us. It has the same limits that the Chinese are confronted every day. Some people worry about these limits, but if China one day opens, none of this will be a problem – the capacity is there.

The limits are political, not technological.

The limits are political, not technological. I am not too worried about whether it will replace human writing in the future, because how many people will read by then? However, I have some concerns about the security and confidentiality of user information, and AI has generated false information.

However, I am even more worried about the fact that since 2010, search engines, social media and algorithmic flows, which are all simpler technologies than Deepseek, have had a huge impact on which we do not have still thought out. We all have, including Christians, to become digitally captive, both in China and elsewhere.

The volume of information has exceeded our human capacity to receive it, and in the face of false information, we cannot or do not want to distinguish the truth from lies. We live in a world of information that opposes each other, and our consensus on the truth, the good and the beautiful becomes more and more thin.

In 2017, we conducted a study on Christian content on WeChat and concluded that Bad Money will lead to good money. The “bad money” here is a reference to what is counterfeit – so the abundance of lie expels the truth, which expels consensus on good and also expels the beauty step by step.

One of the things that makes Deepseek different from similar products is that it shares with you its process of treatment or reflection, that is to say logic. This process itself shows its ability to do exactly what is missing today among people who are used to being consumers who have fed information without criticism.

It forms you – allowing you to relearn critical thinking.

Deepseek speaks to people in an apparently natural way, interacting less like a secretary and more like a brainstorming session with a colleague or a partner. When you form it, without realizing it, it forms you – allowing you to relearn the critical thinking and the discretion of the even software that we have created.

It is, in turn, where I feel full of hope. We must all learn to think critically, to apply logic and to organize our own thoughts. And Christians in particular need to “look deeply” more for truth, kindness and beauty.

While artificial intelligence progresses quickly, its impact on human creativity, consumption of information and even spiritual life becomes an urgent subject of discussion. Deepseek, an AI chatbot developed in China, not only highlights the technological progress of natural language treatment, but also reflects the unique challenges of navigation on digital spaces under the specific constraints of China.

For Christians, in particular those of the communities of the Church of the House, the role of AI in the formation of access and interpretation of information is both an edifying and intriguing development. Realize that this is appropriate and important because it raises critical questions about the influence of AI on the search for truth and the future of human thought, encouraging a more in -depth reflection on the way in which we are committed to technology in faith and society.

Originally published in English by Source of China. Republished with permission.

Pastor Jerry An has been working in the Ministry of Media since 2001 and is now the Chinese team leader in Refer (Formerly return to God Ministry International). Under his vision and leadership, the Chinese language ministry has become a pioneer, a reflection group and a partner at the New Media Ministry. Pastor Jerry regularly trains Chinese church churchs around the world in the development of ways to use new media to advance the kingdom. He is also a publisher, producer, radio host and writer.