But for Xinjiang’s Uyghurs, who are facing an alleged genocide, the rollout of China’s newest chatbot was just another way to remove their 12 million people from history.
Dr Adrian Zenz, a leading expert in Beijing’s Xinjiang policies, said China was doing this to “eradicate” the Uyghurs as an ethnic group and extinguish their dream of independence.
So to see DeepSeek re-write her homeland’s history was “deeply worrying” and, like Ms Mahmut, represented a new way for China to erase Uyghur history.
“They are culturally and religiously very different to the rest of China, they are a Turkic people, not Chinese, which is a problem for Beijing”, Dr Zenz told The Independent.
Ms Mahmut, who now spends her time in London making Uyghur music while reflecting on the slow strangulation of her culture, said: “The assertion that the claim of Uyghur genocide is ‘completely unfounded’ is not only false.
