Vivian Wang

ChatGPT.

ChatGPT.

And that really caught Chinese policymakers and Chinese tech companies off guard.

Yeah, exactly.

And for China, I think it was a moment that made them sit back and think, OK, we thought we had the lead on AI when it came to facial recognition.

But here is this completely different area, generative AI, that they had not been thinking about as much.

And it kind of scares the Chinese government because generative AI is—

You know, it's this thing that is looking at all of the information on the Internet.

It's coming up with answers that are sort of unpredictable.

And the Chinese government becomes really nervous that this is going to be a threat to their information controls, their censorship regime.

You know, they don't want Chinese people plugging questions about politically sensitive events into a chatbot and getting answers that they don't want the people to be getting.

Exactly.

I think that they had been thinking about AI as this really powerful tool for the economy and in some ways to solidify their grip on political control.

But here is proof that it also could be a problem.

And so you see them react.

ChatGPT is banned in China.

The Chinese government starts putting out new regulations also on Chinese AI companies that might be working on generative AI.

For example, they quickly roll out a rule that says if any Chinese AI company is building a model that can, quote unquote, mobilize society, it has to first pass a series of checks and clearances with the Chinese government before it can be released to the public.

What are those checks and clearances?

So basically, you have to do safety testing.