China is cracking down on a rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI) generated fake news accounts and posts.
Earlier this week, China’s State Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said it had already “cleared” over 107K counterfeit news accounts and 835K pieces of false information and urged citizens to report fake news accounts and stories as they come across them.
The internet regulator said its crackdown on AI-generated fake news would “clear and standardize the order of network communication in key traffic links”, including news providers like short video platforms and popular search lists.
The CAC’s tougher stance on AI-generated fake news comes after Chinese policy made their first arrest in accordance with a new AI media law.
The arrested person allegedly created a fake news article about a train crash that killed nine construction workers using ChatGPT, with the story quickly going viral and garnering as much as 15,000 views.
New Chinese Law Cracks Down on Fake AI-Generated Content
China’s new AI media law aims to block fake news that was created by AI technology, including deep fakes.
Given that the law also requires AI service providers to ensure their program isn’t being misused for illegal activities, such as fake news, this could cause big problems for some of China’s tech giants, who have been furiously working to pump out generative AI applications in order not to be left behind by competitor firms in the US like OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT), Microsoft and Google.
AI image maker Midjourney recent launched a beta version of its application on China’s popular everything application WeChat.
Chinese tech giant Tencent, meanwhile, just announced a new deep fake service that will offer customers the ability to create a high-definition digital human for $145.
ChatGPT, meanwhile, is blocked in China, though users such as the person arrested for a fake news story can still access the application via a Virtual Private Network (VPN).