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China to require AI licenses
China is reportedly mulling a proposal that would require all companies working with generative AI to apply for licenses directly from directly the state. The move is meant to ensure that even as China makes a bid to be an AI superpower, the technology remains “reliable and controllable,” in the words of the country’s top internet regulator.
This highlights the particular AI regulation challenges that China faces, as an authoritarian one-party state that is seeking to become a global leader in the industry: The ruling Communist Party wants to maximize AI innovation but minimize any challenges to its strict control of online speech and content.
Compare that with the US — China’s main competitor in the AI race — which has a different set of concerns. Washington wants to limit harm to consumers and society, but without stifling innovation at the Silicon Valley firms that are on the front lines of the competition with Beijing.
Europe, meanwhile, lacking tech giants of its own, is moving ahead with some of the strictest regulations on AI to head off the negative consequences of algorithmic bias, misinformation, or copyright infringements.
Upshot: The race to regulate AI is at least as consequential as the race to develop the technology itself.A police officer stands at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
China wants ChatCCP, not ChatGPT
China is not immune to fears about the power of artificial intelligence that the launch of ChatGPT sparked around the world. The Chinese Communist Party, in turn, is drafting regulations to enforce AI censorship rules to ensure chatbots don’t undermine its power.
ChatGPT is unavailable in China, so entrepreneurs and investors are racing to develop domestic AI alternatives. But those that have been created so far have failed to live up to the party’s patriotic standards.
Unlike most governments, the CCP is not waiting to see the consequences of AI before drawing stringent red lines. Chatbots will be forbidden from speaking critically of Chinese leaders or against the Party’s version of history and must respect intellectual property. Companies should expect to be held responsible if they fail to follow the proposed regulations, as the government is requiring that chatbot algorithms and their software engineers be registered with the government. While the regulations are not finalized, AI engineers in China are already striving to align their work with them.
But can the rules be obeyed? It may require a level of technical control that developers of the most advanced AI chatbots are struggling to achieve. That said, nobody thought China could have a booming tech industry and strict censorship either.
Beating China at AI
The US and China compete on many fronts, and one of them is artificial intelligence.
But China has a different set of values, which former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is not a big fan of — especially when those values shape the AI on apps his children use.
"You may not care where your kids are, and TikTok may know where your teenagers are, and that may not bother you," he says. "But you certainly don't want them to be affected by algorithms that are inspired by the Chinese and not by Western values."
For Schmidt, the Chinese government is ensuring that the internet reflects the priorities of the ruling Communist Party.
Watch his interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World:Be more worried about artificial intelligence
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