China’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is trained on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) doctrine, in a stark reminder of the ideological parameters that Chinese AI models should abide by.
China’s cyberspace academy earlier this week announced the chatbot trained on “Xi Jinping Thought,” a doctrine that promotes “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The chatbot was trained on seven databases, six of which were mostly related to information technologies provided by China’s Internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, or CAC.
Photo: AP
Xi Jinping Thought was the seventh database that the chatbot was trained on, according to a WeChat messaging service post by CAC’s magazine about the AI model.
The Xi-trained large-language model is the latest effort by authorities to spread the Chinese leader’s ideology and ideas. Students have had to take classes on Xi Jinping Thought in schools, and an app called Study Xi Strong Nation was rolled out in 2019 to allow users to learn and take quizzes about his ideologies.
Xi Jinping Thought — also known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — is made up of 14 principles, including ensuring the absolute power of the Chinese Communist Party, strengthening national security and socialist values, as well as improving people’s livelihoods and well-being.
The chatbot was created primarily to demonstrate the development and practical applications in cybersecurity and IT research, said the China Institute of Cybersecurity Affairs, which had launched the AI model for internal use.
The AI model would be able to generate report outlines on topics such as AI development and productivity, the CAC magazine’s WeChat post said.
“Users can choose different categories of knowledge bases for intelligent question and answer. The professionalism and authority of the corpus ensure the professionalism of the generated content,” the post said.
The AI model would also be able to create reports, summarize information and provide translations in Chinese or English for users who have access to it.
However, it is not clear if the Xi-trained chatbot is meant for public use.
The unveiling of the chatbot comes as the US and China are locked in a race for AI supremacy.
Although San Francisco-based OpenAI’s generative AI model ChatGPT has been widely credited as one of the most important developments in the field, China also has ambitions to become the global leader in AI by 2030.
Technology firms such as Alibaba and Baidu have already rolled out primarily Chinese-language AI models similar to ChatGPT for public and commercial use.
However, these AI models tend to be more restricted as they have to abide by China’s strict censorship rules. Chinese AI models often do not answer any politically sensitive questions posed to them.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home