China Arrests Man for Using ChatGPT to Spread Fake News
A man in China has been arrested for using ChatGPT, an AI-driven text generator, to write a fake story about a train accident that he then published online. The arrest was made in the northern province of Gansu where the suspect named Hong was accused of using ChatGPT to create and share fabricated news stories about a train accident that killed several people. This is believed to be the first time that an individual has been arrested in China for using ChatGPT, which is illegal in the country.
Baijiahao, a Baidu creation platform, was used to broadcast the fake news articles. The specific crime Hong has been accused of is “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which is punishable by up to five years in prison. This is according to Bloomberg who also reported that ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 as a free-to-use service by OpenAI, a Microsoft-backed company. Large corporations such as Google, Baidu, and Alibaba have since announced their own versions of this technology.
Unlike the US and European countries which have yet to formulate regulations around the technology, the Chinese government has already issued rules for companies operating in the generative AI space. The regulations state that any content generated by AI bots should “reflect the core values of socialism, and must not contain subversion of state power”. It also mandates that the content should be accurate.
The arrest of Hong therefore marks the first case in which this legislation is being applied. It is likely to be further tested in the coming years as the use of AI continues to grow in China and other countries.
