China proposes measures to manage generative AI services: Report

China’s cyberspace regulator unveiled draft measures on Tuesday for managing generative artificial intelligence services, saying it wants firms to submit security assessments to authorities before they launch their offerings to the public.

The rules drafted by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) come as several governments are considering how to mitigate the dangers of the emerging technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity in recent months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
 

They also come after a slew of Chinese tech giants, including Baidu, SenseTime and Alibaba showed off in recent weeks their new artificial intelligence models which can power applications ranging from chatbots to image generators.
 

The CAC said that China supports AI innovation and application and encourages use of safe and reliable software, tools and data resources, but content generated by generative AI had to be in line with the country's core socialist values.
 

Providers will be responsible for the legitimacy of data used to train generative AI products and measures should be taken to prevent discrimination when designing algorithms and training data, it said.
 

The regulator also said service providers must require users to submit their real identities and related information.
 

Providers will be fined, have their services suspended, or even face criminal investigations if they fail to comply with the rules.

If inappropriate content is generated by their platforms, the companies must update the technology within three months to prevent similar content from being generated again, the CAC said.
 

The public can comment on the proposals until May 10, and the measures are expected to come into effect sometime this year, according to the draft rules.

Latest rival of ChatGPT is Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Tuesday unveiled Tongyi Qianwen, an AI large language model similar to GPT that it plans to integrate into all of the company's business applications in the future.
 

It will first be integrated into DingTalk, Alibaba’s workplace messaging app and can be used to summarise meeting notes, write emails and draft business proposals. It will also be added to Tmall Genie, Alibaba’s voice assistant.
 

“We are at a technological watershed moment driven by generative AI and cloud computing, and businesses across all sectors have started to embrace intelligence transformation to stay ahead of the game,” CEO Daniel Zhang said in a statement.
 

Alibaba Cloud plans to open Tongyi Qianwen to its clients so they can build their own customized large language models.

Shares in Alibaba rose 3 per cent in morning trade.
 

Tongyi Qianwen is based on Tongyi, Alibaba's proprietary pre-trained model framework that unifies various AI models.                      

- Reuters

China firms working on ChatGPT-style AI

Here is a list of Chinese tech companies, except Alibaba, that have recently made announcements on AI-powered technology:

SENSETIME Chinese AI firm SenseTime unveiled on April 10 a slew of new AI-powered products, including a chatbot and image generator based off its AI model SenseNova

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES Telecoms giant has the Pangu series of AI models whose applications range from drug development to computer vision

BAIDU On March 16, Baidu unveiled its AI-powered chatbot  Ernie Bot. It is now available to a limited number of users who apply for access codes

Plans to use Ernie Bot to revolutionise its search engine, by far the most dominant in China, as well as beef up efficiency in its cloud, smart cars and household appliances

TENCENT The technology company has set up a development team for a ChatGPT-like chatbot to be called ‘HunyuanAide’

FUDAN UNIVERSITY TEAM A team from China’s Fudan University launched a ChatGPT-like chatbot called MOSS on February 20 

JD.COM E-commerce company JD.Com said on February 10 it planned to launch a product similar to ChatGPT, to be called ChatJD and aimed at serving other businesses

CHINA TELECOM The company is developing an industrial version of ChatGPT for telecoms, which will use AI in some customer service functions, domestic media said on February 18

INSPUR ELECTRONIC INFORMATION INDUSTRY Company has long invested in AI-Generated Content technology, it said on its investor relations website