Chinese police have launched an investigation into a news portal that used the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence program to generate and spread fake articles, aiming to gain large amounts of traffic and profit.
Agents initially found an article on the Internet reporting a train derailment and fire in Pingliang, in the western province of Gansu, which resulted in several deaths.
After verifying that it was false information, the police opened an investigation and found that the article was published by 21 accounts of Baidu, the main Chinese search engine, created by a company based in Shenzhen, in southern China.
The company’s legal representative, surnamed Hong, and his younger brother are suspected of fabricating and spreading rumours.
According to police, Hong’s younger brother bought a large number of “Baijia accounts,” a service provided by Baidu that allows users to create and stream original content, and edited the news using the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program, which generates texts based on keywords.
The goal was to get a lot of traffic and profit by spreading sensational and fake news.
Police arrested the younger brother and froze bank accounts related to the case. The investigation is still ongoing and authorities have warned netizens not to create or spread rumors ‘online’.
In recent weeks, this type of ‘chatbots’ has aroused great interest in the Asian country, to the point that the official press has already warned of a possible “bubble” in the market due to “excess enthusiasm” with this technology.
Last April, China’s internet regulator published a draft regulation that will regulate the artificial intelligence sector. The bill requires that content created by chatbots and other generative models “reflect fundamental socialist values” and not “harm national unity, subvert state power, or incite the division of the country.”
The turmoil around ChatGPT in China has also raised questions about the application of this type of technologies in the Asian country due to the strong censorship imposed by the authorities.
Source: TSF
