Paid-for materials exploit knowledge anxiety around emerging technology

While the rapid rise of China's homegrown artificial intelligence reasoning model DeepSeek has sparked a host of enterprises seeking to cash in by offering training courses on how to use it, experts have warned consumers to be wary of wasting their money on courses that provide guidance that is already freely available.

On Chinese lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, some users share guides on using DeepSeek, with prices ranging from a few yuan to several hundred yuan.

"If you don't learn how to use AI today, you'll be left behind tomorrow," several posts say. "How to use DeepSeek to earn money" is another trending topic on the platform. These posts are typically followed by links to purchase courses or join group chats.

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On WeChat, multiple accounts use DeepSeek user guides as clickbait, though full content often requires additional payment. Paid online communities focused on AI are also emerging, offering "exclusive" resources to subscribers.

According to the course descriptions, these paid tutorials typically cover basic AI tool usage, including prompt writing, skill-building, applications in various fields and even strategies for making money with AI.

"The rise of new technologies is always accompanied by a boom in paid training courses," said Yan Huaizhi, an associate professor of the School of Computer Science &Technology at the Beijing Institute of Technology, in an interview with Workers' Daily.

"On one hand, this trend reflects people's desire to learn new skills. On the other hand, it epitomizes how some agencies exploit the knowledge gap to make quick profits," Yan said.

"The popularity of these paid courses also highlights that selling tools to those eager to make money is a lucrative business model," he added.

Since the release of DeepSeek R1 on Jan 20, a tag for a DeepSeek training course on Xiaohongshu has been viewed almost 20 million times.

While some courses and online communities offer value, the quality of many paid offerings is sometimes questionable. Some simply repackage materials from other AI models or provide low-quality content under the DeepSeek name.

"By touting AI as a necessary survival tool, these people are selling anxiety," one user wrote online.

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Bao Ran, vice-president of the Interactive Media Technical Standards Promotion Committee of the China Communications Standards Association, said there is no need to pay for these tutorials since the basics are freely available online.

On video-sharing platform Bilibili, free DeepSeek and AI tutorials have attracted millions of views. One video explaining DeepSeek's local deployment, published on Jan 27, has more than 2 million views.

Chinese universities such as Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University have also offered free AI-related lectures and guides to students.

While certain consumers such as the elderly may gain value from being walked through how to use AI models step by step, others may feel cheated when they realize they paid for something that they could have easily accessed for free.

Li Shangyi contributed to this story.