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Artificial intelligence
TechPolicy

Chinese tech firms take heed of country’s strict online moderation as they rush to bring their ChatGPT-like services to market

  • Chinese ChatGPT-like services are expected to encounter ‘more layers of filtering and processing’ in terms of content review on the mainland
  • Access to US firm OpenAI’s viral chatbot on the mainland remains difficult, which has prompted local tech companies to offer alternative services

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There is an opportunity for Chinese ChatGPT-like services to thrive within the country’s Great Firewall. Photo: Shutterstock
Coco Fengin Beijing
Chinese technology companies are taking heed of the country’s strict online moderation policy, as they rush to develop their own versions of ChatGPT, the viral chatbot service of US firm OpenAI.
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“It’s different in China, compared with overseas,” Bright Xu Liang, founder and chief executive of Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Yuanyu Intelligent, told the South China Morning Post on Friday. “We need more layers of filtering and processing in terms of text review.”
Founded last year, Yuanyu Intelligent in January launched ChatYuan, touted as the first generative AI pre-trained by Chinese-language models, ahead of Baidu’s own “Ernie Bot”. Generative AI refers to algorithms that can be used to create new content, including text, audio, images, video and simulations.
ChatYuan ran as a mini-program on Tencent Holdings’ super app WeChat, where users accessed the technology without downloading separate software. Operations of ChatYuan were recently suspended for maintenance updates, but it is expected to resume next week.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman speaks during a keynote address announcing ChatGPT integration for Microsoft’s Bing search engine at the software giant’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on February 7, 2023. Photo: Agence France-Presse
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman speaks during a keynote address announcing ChatGPT integration for Microsoft’s Bing search engine at the software giant’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on February 7, 2023. Photo: Agence France-Presse

Compliance with China’s online moderation policy has meant that ChatYuan’s system would “filter certain keywords”, according to Xu, who said Yuanyu Intelligent would bring in some human moderators from next week. The latest updates also cover the app’s “product and [computational] engine”.

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