Tsinghua users' guide on DeepSeek goes viral

As DeepSeek, the latest AI phenomenon, thunders into public consciousness, social media platforms are being transformed into creative classrooms where just about everything imaginable is taught by using the software — from designing wedding invitations to using Photoshop, tutoring math and telling fortunes.

DeepSeek is even being used to teach people how to use DeepSeek.

One such tutorial is on social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. Titled Learning to Use DeepSeek in One Minute, it garnered more than 11,000 likes in just 10 days.

All this grassroots experimentation is helping to demystify artificial intelligence and turn it into a cultural phenomenon.

Among the tutorials, one released by Tsinghua University's Metaverse Culture Laboratory team — DeepSeek from Beginner to Mastery 2025 — stands out. The 104-page document, which covers theory and practical skills, is a detailed manual for mastering DeepSeek and harnessing its full potential. It's designed both for beginners and advanced users.

The guide provides strategies for creating prompts that enhance AI performance, including task decomposition, iterative optimization and avoiding common pitfalls. It also includes case studies illustrating how to apply DeepSeek to meet various needs.

Team leader Shen Yang, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication and its College of AI, said human-computer dialogue is essential for progress.

Even though AI's ability to understand human intentions has improved significantly in the era of reasoning models, humans still need to clearly express their needs, he said.

Its ability to understand humans is getting stronger, and we should attach great importance to this kind of human-computer interaction, he added.

The combination of open-source software and inclusive applications is meaningful, he said. By providing free tutorials, for example, the team can deliver the power of AI to everyone, allowing each person to use and master it, rather than being dominated by it.

"You can fight without mastering the Chinese martial arts," he said. "But you can fight better if you do. You can use AI more effectively after the tutorials."

It is hoped that everyone can achieve a level of mastery over AI in certain aspects, as well as develop the ability to make pleasing aesthetic judgments and responsible choices, Shen said.

The interaction between human intelligence and AI needs further exploration, he said, adding that he has interacted with different AI applications and models around 30,000 times.

What DeepSeek, an open-source software, means for people in different industries once it is thoroughly studied raises fascinating and exciting questions, he added.

A social media influencer using the name Zhinan Shanhe posted a four-episode video tutorial of DeepSeek on Douyin and Xiaohongshu. The videos have been popular, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes.

The 30-year-old from Shanghai works in the AI industry and has mastered many AI tools.

"Before DeepSeek, I mostly used foreign AI models, which are not so user-friendly for Chinese people," he said. "But the capabilities of DeepSeek are mesmerizing. It is powerful and also completely free, which is a blessing for its users."

As more people began to use the software, the lack of tutorials became apparent. Many people need guidance, so he began posting basic tutorials that bring much-needed traffic to his social media accounts, said the influencer.

"The emergence of DeepSeek has been a ray of hope for homegrown AI apps and has allowed more people to realize the value of AI," he said.

Ashui, another influencer on Xiaohongshu, has become a popular provider of DeepSeek tutorials. The 30-year-old from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region began using the software at the end of January and has been amazed by its high-quality output.

She posted an easy tutorial on Xiaohongshu that helped her gain thousands of new followers.

"Each question asked of Deep-Seek gets a tailor-made response," she said. "It's almost like talking to humans."

Xu Ziya contributed to this story.