China has blocked access to ChatGPT due to concerns about "misleading" information. Although the ChatGPT application is not officially available in China, some people have found ways to use it. The Chinese government has blocked its citizens' access to ChatGPT, one of the most popular applications used for artificial intelligence algorithms, due to concerns about the possibility of spreading "misleading information" that reflects the US perspective on China.
Despite the lack of official availability of the ChatGPT application in China, some individuals have discovered ways to use it, such as utilizing VPN servers and custom software developed by independent developers that allow it to be run in the country. According to Nikkei Asia, Chinese authorities have instructed major Chinese technology companies, including Tencent, which owns the WeChat application, to cut off access to these programs.
The Chinese government also requires technology companies that wish to develop artificial intelligence applications to communicate with government agencies before launching any new application. This step comes amid growing concerns in China about some responses that the government cannot control, regarding user questions related to human rights violations in China, such as those affecting the Uyghur Muslims.
Targeting ChatGPT is part of the recent wave of Chinese legislation aimed at monitoring the use of artificial intelligence applications. In 2019, the Chinese government introduced new legislation requiring companies to provide artificial intelligence technologies to the government for approval before selling or exporting them. This move is seen as part of the government's plan to exert greater control over the rapidly growing industry in China.
AI applications and robots rely on natural language processing to generate responses to user queries, drawing on data they have been trained on. In the case of ChatGPT, the application was trained on a large set of textual data from the internet, including news articles, social media posts, and diverse digital content. This means that the responses generated by the application may reflect biases present in the source material.
In recent years, concerns have arisen regarding the use of AI applications and robots to spread fake information and political propaganda. In 2019, a group of researchers from the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for AI created a text generation application based on the GPT-2 model that was able to produce highly convincing news articles. The researchers decided not to release the full version of the application due to concerns about its potential use in spreading fake information.
Neither OpenAI nor Tencent, which has a partnership with OpenAI for developing AI technology, have commented on this action by the Chinese government so far.
It is expected that this action will raise concerns among companies using AI applications in China, which may face the possibility of further restrictions on these applications in the future. It is worth noting that interest in AI and its applications is increasing year by year worldwide, and a number of similar computer algorithms to ChatGPT have been produced in recent years.
As the use of this technology grows across industries, it is likely that authorities in China will have more reservations about the use of AI applications and chatbots in the near future, which will have a significant impact on that industry in Chinese markets.