ByteDance, Alibaba pull AI companion features as China tightens rules

ByteDance Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. are pulling the plug on features that let users build and chat with AI companions, preparing for new Chinese regulations governing human interactions with artificial intelligence. 

 

ByteDance’s Doubao, China’s most popular AI chatbot, will shut down a feature on July 15 that allows users to customize their own AI personas, according to an app notification seen by Bloomberg News. The notice directed users to a separate, standalone companion app. Alibaba’s Qwen has issued a similar alert, as have other major platforms like Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Yuanbao, according to local media reports.

 

The sudden retreat comes ahead of new Beijing regulations taking effect in mid-July to tighten oversight on humanlike AI services. Concern about AI chatbots simulating human personalities and emotions — and the potential attachment that users can develop to those interactions — motivated the new rules, which were first unveiled in April.

 

The new directives represent one of the most comprehensive set of regulations intended to forestall AI’s potential harms, even as some companies warn that rigid rules would impede innovation. They reflect widening global anxiety over the psychological toll of conversational AI. In the US, tech platforms have come under intense legal scrutiny for similar features. OpenAI Inc. and Alphabet Inc.-backed Character.AI have faced a wave of high-profile lawsuits alleging their hyper-realistic chatbots fostered dangerous emotional dependencies and, in extreme cases, led to the suicide of vulnerable users.

 

Driven by the Cyberspace Administration of China, Beijing’s new rules prohibit platforms from generating content that triggers extreme emotions in minors or fosters unhealthy emotional dependencies that erode real-world relationships. The framework also bars providers from using sensitive user conversation data to train future AI models.

 

Chinese chatbot platforms have long offered the ability to customize an AI agent using a few text prompts, with the most popular options including virtual boyfriends and girlfriends, unlicensed digital therapists, and simulated clones of pop idols.

 

Beyond AI chatbots, China’s scrutiny of artificial intimacy is already spilling into physical hardware. Two Chinese robotics industry groups are pushing for tighter ethical safeguards just as a massive commercial surge in companion bots and full-size humanoids hits consumers’ homes, the People’s Daily reported Saturday.