Hong Kong aims to develop its own ChatGPT-like platform based on artificial intelligence, technology chief says

Hong Kong aims to develop its own artificial intelligence-based chatbot platform, similar to the popular ChatGPT, to catch up in the global race for innovation, the city’s technology chief has said.

Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong on Saturday also said authorities would carry out a public consultation this year on plans to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputing centre to attract top talent and technology enterprises to Hong Kong.

He outlined his AI vision after revealing plans earlier to establish a special task force to recommend the best way to navigate “revolutionary” disruption caused by the controversial ChatGPT, including the option of using legislation to regulate the technology.

“I have tried out ChatGPT myself and found it really good. This has marked a new stage for the future development of AI,” he told a radio programme. “This has inspired us. We need to reallocate our resources into the study of AI in order to catch up with global technology development.”

ChatGPT was unveiled in November last year by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The service, which generates humanlike text, attracted 100 million users only two months after its launch, which made it the fastest-growing consumer application in history.

The platform has taken the internet by storm and shaken up the global education sector as it can produce humanlike responses on topics such as politics, poetry in the style of William Shakespeare, sports, science and more, made possible through machine learning algorithms trained with enormous amounts of information.

Sun stressed that he was open-minded about the chatbot application and said the government aimed to develop a similar home-grown AI-based platform.