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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to