Chinese regulators have stepped out to release rules for generative artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT as several companies continue to integrate the technology into their products.
Given the potential of generative AI to generate content that could be politically sensitive as well as several challenges it may pose, Chinese regulators have deemed it feet to unveil rules that will regulate the technology.
Hence, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has recently introduced lay down ground rules that generative AI services have to follow, including the type of content these products are allowed to generate, also noting that the content needs to reflect the core values of socialism and should not sabotage state power.
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The draft rules state that companies should ensure that the data being used to train these AI models will not discriminate against people based on things like gender, race, and ethnicity. They also should not generate false information. The CAC’s rules which highlight the concerns that Chinese firms will follow, are slated to come into effect this year.
China’s rules for generative AI technology like ChatGPT are coming as Chinese biggest tech companies are integrating the technology into their product to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, even as the country’s state media warns investors of a valuation bubble.
China’s e-commerce giant is the latest company in the country to integrate the technology into its products, after it announced that it would be installing its chatbot “Tongyi Qianwen” into its speakers and its office chat software, with plans to integrate the new technology into all its services in the near future.
With OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, now a buzzword on social media, generative artificial intelligence (AI) models have taken hold of the public’s imagination. Policymakers have also taken note, with statements from members addressing risk and AI-generated text read on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Also, several countries have begun to release regulations on the generative AI technology which they disclosed could be malicious to users. It is interesting to note that Italy became the first Western nation to ban ChatGPT and has ordered for it to be blocked in the country citing data protection concerns. The Italian DPA said it is concerned that the ChatGPT maker is breaching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and is opening an investigation.
The San Francisco-based company was given 20 days to respond to the order, backed up by the threat of some meaty penalties if it fails to comply. Fines for breaches of the EU’s data protection regime can scale up to 4% of annual turnover, or €20 million. It is worth noting that since OpenAI does not have a legal entity established in the EU, any data protection authority is empowered to intervene, under the GDPR, if it sees risks to local users.
Moreover, ChatGPT has been shown to produce completely false information about individuals, apparently making up details its training data lacks. That potentially raises further GDPR concerns, since the regulation provides Europeans with a suite of rights over their data, including the right to rectification of errors.
Also, the U.S. Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, calling on the agency to halt further commercial deployment of GPT by OpenAI until safeguards have been put in place to stop ChatGPT from deceiving people and perpetuating biases.
EU lawmakers are already planning to regulate the A.I. industry through an Artificial Intelligence Act that the European Commission first proposed nearly two years ago. However, some of the proposed measures are beginning to look outdated given rapid advances in the field and highly competitive rollouts of new services, and the EU’s institutions are now scrambling to modernize the bill so it will adequately tackle services like ChatGPT.