 "Representational image. AI-generated")
OpenAI has flagged the use of its chatbot by suspected Chinese government operatives to surveil Uyghurs and other individuals. The company said in its report that China is also employing ChatGPT to scan social media accounts for “extremist speech.”
The US and China are openly competing for dominance in AI technology, pouring billions into developing new capabilities. However, the new report reveals that suspected state actors are often using AI for more routine tasks, such as data processing or refining language, rather than groundbreaking technological feats.
Ben Nimmo, principal investigator at OpenAI, told CNN, “There’s a push within the People’s Republic of China to get better at using artificial intelligence for large-scale things like surveillance and monitoring.”
“It’s not last year that the Chinese Communist Party started surveilling its own population. But now they’ve heard of AI and they’re thinking, oh maybe we can use this to get a little bit better,” he added.
How is China using ChatGPT?
The report reveals one particular case where a user “likely connected to a [Chinese] government entity” asked ChatGPT to write a proposal for a tool that tracks the travel movements of the Uyghur minority and other “high-risk” people.
Another Chinese-speaking user asked ChatGPT to help create “promotional materials” for a tool claiming to scan X, Facebook, and other social media platforms for political and religious content. OpenAI said it has since banned both users involved.
However, China is not the only country that has found malignant ways to use artificial intelligence. The OpenAI report suggests suspected Russian, North Korean and Chinese hackers have used its platform to refine their coding or make the phishing links they send to targets more plausible.
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More Shorts‘Slanders against China’
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, said that the OpenAI report is “baseless”. “We oppose groundless attacks and slanders against China,” she told CNN.
“China is rapidly building an AI governance system with distinct national characteristics. This approach emphasizes a balance between development and security, featuring innovation, security and inclusiveness. The government has introduced major policy plans and ethical guidelines, as well as laws and regulations on algorithmic services, generative AI, and data security,” she added.