The government of China wants its population as far away from ChatGPT as possible, and it has already communicated it to the main technological companies in the country. This is clear from a report Nikkei Asiawhich ensures that Alibaba —through its fintech Ant Group—and Tencent have received warnings from regulators not to include OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot among their services.
The reason behind the decision is a very simple one, according to the aforementioned medium: prevent users from receiving “uncensored answers” to politically sensitive questions. A decision that is not surprising, considering not only the propaganda and censorship apparatus of the Asian giant, but also how the popularity of bots like ChatGPT has skyrocketed around the world.
The report indicates that the companies in question should refrain from offering services linked to ChatGPT, both directly and through third parties. China has been no stranger to boom of generative AI and among the most notorious cases is WeChat, which belongs to Tencent. The popular messaging app recently added some chatbot features via the OpenAI API, but has had to remove them. Even though it placed heavy restrictions on the answers he could provide.
Another important element to consider is that Chinese regulators are not satisfied with preventing access to ChatGPT. They also want companies that are developing their own alternatives notify the authorities before releasing them publicly. Needless to say, the intention is to keep chatbot speech as much at bay as possible.
China deepens its crusade against ChatGPT
Technically, ChatGPT was never available to the Chinese public. It is true that many users have circumvented the restrictions by connecting to the web through a VPN. However, the message that regulators are sending down to their big tech companies is clear: they don’t want the slightest trace of the OpenAI chatbot in their products.
In addition, for better or for worse, the determination of the authorities poses a new challenge for companies in the sector. Now they must show that they are really prepared to compete against Western generative AI. Something that will test the claims of Chinese companies that claim to have started investing in the sector several years ago.
Let’s not forget that, since ChatGPT was launched publicly in November 2022, practically every technology company in the world claimed to be working on a similar tool. In China, the cases that have gained the most relevance have been those of Baidu, which promises to be based on an automatic learning model called Ernie, and Alibaba.
Regarding the specific case of the electronic commerce giant, details about its development are scarce. The company has been rumored to incorporate its chatbot into DingTalk, a multipurpose messaging app, but not much else.
China’s crusade against ChatGPT is part of a larger plan which became known at the end of 2022. In December, the Cyberspace Administration —the Chinese regulator and censor— banned the use of AI to create images, text, audio or video. The only exception was for those materials bearing a watermark identifying them as “synthetic content.”
At that time, the authorities assured that the intention was to “maintain social peace.” And the plan to go against the OpenAI chatbot does not seem too far from the same speech. Especially if one considers that, in recent days, the affiliated media of the Asian giant began to accuse him of being used by the United States as a propaganda tool.