China will impose a “security inspection” on artificial intelligence tools. Local internet giants are caught up in a craze for designing ChatGPT-like tools, but the government would rather frame all of this before it’s too late.
The prowess of the American OpenAI chatbot, launched in November and capable of formulating detailed answers on a wide range of topics in seconds, is being watched with interest in China. The interface is not accessible in the country, but ChatGPT is the subject of countless articles and debates on social networks. And local tech giants are competing to design equivalent tools.
The Baidu search engine was one of the first Chinese groups to position itself in this niche, joined by the Internet and video game champion Tencent, and even Alibaba, a pioneer in electronic commerce. In full euphoria over the so-called generative artificial intelligence, the country wants to regulate this technology.
“Reflect core socialist values”
Before being available, products powered by generative artificial intelligence will have to “seek a safety inspection,” according to the draft regulations released by the Cyberspace Administration of China on Tuesday. The regulator, which is submitting its text for public comment before adoption, does not specify when the regulations will take effect.
AI-generated content must “reflect fundamental socialist values and must not contain [d’éléments relatifs] to the subversion of state power”, specifies the draft regulation. Its goal is to ensure “the healthy development and standard application of generative artificial intelligence technology,” according to the internet regulator.
China aims to become the world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030, which will revolutionize a multitude of sectors, including the automotive industry and medicine.
Baidu was the first in its country to announce that it is working on a local equivalent to ChatGPT. Presented last month to the press, Ernie Bot, which works in Mandarin and is only aimed at the Chinese market, is currently only available in beta. E-commerce giant Alibaba unveiled its own “Tongyi Qianwen” (all-knowing machine) on Tuesday.
Already two competitors against ChatGPT
In the race for artificial intelligence, the main difficulty in China for developers is to offer a powerful conversational robot, but one that does not deviate from the very strict framework allowed in terms of content.
The Middle Kingdom closely monitors its internet and media. Every day, an army of censors deletes content that paints a bad picture of state politics or is likely to cause unrest.
Social networks are subject to greater control. At the forefront of monitoring new technologies, Beijing had already asked internet giants last year to reveal their algorithms. At the heart of the digital economy, algorithms serve as the brains of many applications and services on the Internet, and are often a closely guarded secret.
Source: BFM TV
