Chinese authorities have declared chatbots must adhere to strict censorship guidelines imposed by the Chinese Communist Party, something Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., says will only further the propaganda agenda.
Gizmodo cited a New York Times report saying the CCP's censorship laws must be followed by chatbots operating within China's digital boundaries. However, it is uncertain whether chatbot makers will be able to adhere to these regulations.
“The CCP’s obsession with control and censorship is so desperate that they are even targeting Chatbots to make sure they follow their revisionist history,” Krishnamoorthi, ranking member of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the CCP, said April 24 on Twitter.
Recently, China's top digital regulator proposed strict guidelines that ban large language models, such as ChatGPT, from generating content that opposes state power or promotes the overthrow of the communist political system, Gizmodo reported.
Although ChatGPT and Bard are not available in China, Chinese innovators have been experimenting with their own viral tech, including a version called ChatYuan. However, ChatYuan was removed from the app store in China due to non-compliance with censorship laws shortly after its release in February, The Byte reported.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), established in 2013, has become the primary internet censor in the country and poses regulatory challenges for fast-growing tech companies. Recently, the CAC removed Didi, a Chinese ride-hailing giant, from app stores just days after its $4.4 billion IPO. The agency also played a significant role in developing China's strict data privacy laws, Gizmodo reported.
In February, Tencent and Ant Group took measures to prevent access to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which Chinese regulators claimed could be used to spread disinformation. Despite being banned in China, some users reportedly shared conversations with the model on WeChat and other platforms via VPNs. The Chinese government perceived some of the responses generated by ChatGPT as "consistent with the political propaganda of the U.S. government," according to The Guardian, Gizmodo reported.
U.S. lawmakers have concerns about the potential misuse of Chinese-made AI technology, according to Gizmodo. During an Axios event last month, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chair of the House China select committee, expressed concerns about Chinese-made AI models, which he described as potential tools for the government to create an "Orwellian techno-totalitarian surveillance state."
