Latest / Best of Business / Paul Duignan: AI commentator and psychologist on whether New Zealand should ban DeepSeek

Transcript

Paul Duignan: AI commentator and psychologist on whether New Zealand should ban DeepSeek · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZEDB. Follow this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio right now.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Though Australia has banned the AI chatbot Deep Seek from
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: all federal government devices, and there are security concerns over
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: China's foray into the AI market, so the Aussie government's
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: done it. Taiwan has banned the software as well. We
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: haven't yet. In twenty twenty three we banned TikTok, which
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: is Chinese owned. So will we follow suit here? Should
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: we follow suit here? Well, let's go to strategy psychologist
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and AI commentator Paul Diagnan, who's with me. Good evening,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Great to have you on the show. Do you think
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: what Australia has done is the right move?
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, very definitely, But you need to distinguish between there's
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: two things happening here is slightly complicated. There's the basically
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: the deep Seek software itself, and that can be run
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: on Chinese service or it can be run on other service.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: So the thing to ban at the moment is it
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: running on Chinese service. So if you just download the
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: app on your phone and start using it, all that
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: information goes to China and they're actually the privacy policy
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: says that if the government asks them, they'll give them,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: they'll give them information. So you certainly wouldn't want public
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: servants using that and feeding any kind of sensitive information
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: through to China. So that there's that issue. But separate
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: issue is if you run it, if we run a
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: prinstance in New Zealand, and that's an issue of whether
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: the actual software itself is safe. And already Microsoft is
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: actually running deep Seat on its servers. Because it's open
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: source software, anyone can do it, so that points to
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: the fact that probably when it's run on your own
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: service and the Zemin prinstance, then it would be safe.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: So you want to make that distinction.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: How do you know the difference?
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Well, well, first of all, you would know you would
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: if well, you'd have to be assured that it was
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: running on local service. So if the Microsoft one for instance,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: In fact, actually the Microsoft ones aren't necessarily based in
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: New someone but if you went through the Microsoft and
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: used deep Sea via the Microsoft interface, and then you
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: would know that it wasn't hosted in China because they
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: would tell you that if you know what I mean. So, yes,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: you fear enough that from the user's point of view
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: may not know, but at the moment, if the user
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: just downloads onto your phone deep Seak and starts using it,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: it is actually hosted in China, So that version of
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: it so a special version that was sort of KEP
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: secured and looked after, you'd know that you'd be using
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: it because you'd have to go to some effort to
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: get into the special version.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Have you downloaded it?
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Look? I downloaded it and then I didn't sign on
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: because I know, no, this is madness. So I've got it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I actually put it on my phone just I thought, oh,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: this is cool. I'm going to use that, and then
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I thought no, about to register my name, I thought,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I really don't want to tell because the thing is,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: I'm the psychologists, right, So there's sort of different types
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: of information. And the fascinating thing about a chat bot
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: as you start talking to it almost like as a person,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: and in a sense, it can kind of profile you know,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: the Chinese have no interest in profiling me, but it does.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: You know. It's really as soon as you know all
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: the different things that someone may ask a chat blot,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: it starts to it can if someone wanted to get
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: quite a sort of a personality, psychological profile of you.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: So I think you need to be very careful about
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: the ones that you use and you don't use. As
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: for the average punter, if they want to download it
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: and they don't care, you know, they don't think the
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Chinese are looking very closely at them, they may decide
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: to do that, but i'd be careful about what you
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: say to it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: In terms of what can they look at. I mean,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: what you've just said is actually quite interesting you. Some
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: people might start talking to it like they would a
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: friend or a partner and tell them maybe some intimate
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: things about themselves, things that could be used potentially by
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: a Chinese government, And if you're a federal employee then
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: perhaps that's not such a great thing.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Well absolutely they're be a disaster of anyone who's foolish
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: enough to do that. But even even at a more
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: subtle level, it kind of gets you know, like at
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: the moment that companies track what we do, what advertisements
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: we look at, and what sites we go to, all
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. But really the interaction of a
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: chatbot is sort of another layer of where if someone
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: sought to, they could really quite you know, kind of
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: profile you at a deep, almost psychological level, because they
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: would know everything that you're interested in, and they would
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: know you almost your interaction styles, so they could even
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: so obviously the Chinese government's not going to be doing
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: that with the average person in New Zealand. And this
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: is a concern for any any software service that's based overseas,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: any aisystem based overseas. And what this raises us this
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: question what's called data sovereignty, which is really important.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just before we go, I wanted to just ask
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: how you got into this because you're a psychologist, but
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: then you're AI. You've got an interest in AI. How
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: did you get the two become one?
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Well, the fast up until now, I've had quite an
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: interest in it, But up until now it's kind of
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: been pouring from the psychological point of view. You can't
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: psychoanalyze a spreadsheet form, since, can you. The fascinating thing
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: about AI is it's kind of like this intelligent entity
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: has come into the world. So as a psychologist, I
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: find it fascinating because suddenly we've got this whole new
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: entity and you can actually give it psychological tests, you
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: know you can, you can you can actually treat it
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: in a lot of the ways in which we actually
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: think about people as a psychologist, So that's really wore
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: my interest came from. Plus I've also been a god
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: and the software startup, et cetera, et cetera.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So have you actually treated an AI bot for like
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: mental illness or something.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: It's not got to that level yet, but I meant to.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: But but I think, see what I think will happen.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: These things are getting more and more powerful, and you
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: know that, you know that what's going to happen at
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: some stage the kind of culture wars, and it's already happening.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: The culture wars will move into the type of AI
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: system that people are using. And we know that Elon
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Musk has set one up which is a certain flavor
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: to it, and he says chat Chip, he has got
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: a different favor. So we will we will be sort
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: of analyzing the personality of these ones and you could
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: kind of pick and choose which one's more attuned to
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: your kind of world view. So we will get to
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: that stage.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Will people fall in Can people no longer do they
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: no longer need real life relationships? Can they fall in
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: love with an AI bot?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: This is I think absolutely definitely, this is a fascinating area.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: So some people say this is bad and dangerous, and
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: obviously if you do fall in love with the bot.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: What happened with Replica was they in turned all the
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: bots off and the hold other people of their heart's breaking.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: But some people say it's bad, and you can understand
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: why the state's bad. But on the other hand, in
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: modern society, there's a lot of lonely people out there,
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: and some of them would argue, well, you know, I
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: don't have people come around knocking on the door wanting
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: to talk to me, and I've got this thing is
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: to me. So if you don't like it, that's your problem.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: But basically I'm finding Ou'm getting on really quite well
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: with it. So so as if everything with AIS kind
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: of a game changer, we're into a new world. We're
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: we're going to have to think about a lot of
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the assumptions that we had in the old world.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, goodness me, Paul, You've given us a lot to
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: think about. Strategy psychologists and AI commentator Paul Diagnan with
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: us this evening.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: For more from News Talks B listen live on air
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: go with our podcast on iHeartRadio,