Chinese police arrest man for allegedly using ChatGPT to spread rumors online | CNN Business

Hong Kong
CNN
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Police in China have arrested a man they say used ChatGPT to create fake news and spread it online, in what state media has called the country’s first criminal case involving the AI ​​chatbot.

According to a statement from police in the northwestern province of Gansu, the suspect allegedly used ChatGPT to generate a false report about a train accident, which he then published online for profit. The article received about 15,000 views, police said in a statement on Sunday.

ChatGPT, developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI (MSFT), is banned in China, although Internet users can use virtual private networks (VPNs) to access it.

Train crashes have been a sensitive issue in China since 2011, when authorities faced pressure to explain why state media had failed to provide timely updates on a bullet train collision in the city of Wenzhou that caused 40 deaths.

Gansu authorities said the suspect, surnamed Hong, was questioned in the city of Dongguan in southern Guangdong province on May 5.

“Hong used modern technology to fabricate false information, spreading it on the Internet, which was widely disseminated,” Gansu police said in the statement.

“His behavior amounted to causing fights and causing trouble,” they added, explaining toffended that Hong was accused of committing.

Police said the arrest was the first in Gansu since China’s Cyberspace Administration enacted new regulations in January to curb the use of deep-pocketed fakes. State broadcaster CGTN says it was the country’s first arrest of a person accused of using ChatGPT to manufacture and spread fake news.

Formally known as deep synthesis, deep forgery refers to highly realistic textual and visual content generated by artificial intelligence.

The new legislation bans users from generating deeply fake content about topics already banned by existing laws on China’s heavily censored internet. It also describes the procedures for removing content deemed false or harmful.

The arrest also came amid a 100-day campaign launched by the Internet branch of the Ministry of Public Security in March to crack down on the spread of rumors on the Internet.

Since the beginning of the year, Chinese Internet giants such as Baidu ( BIDU ) and Alibaba ( BABA ) have tried to catch up with OpenAI, releasing their own versions of the ChatGPT service.

Baidu introduced “Wenxin Yiyan” or “ERNIE Bot” in March. Two months later, Alibaba launched “Tongyi Qianwen,” which roughly translates to seek the truth by asking a thousand questions.

In draft guidelines issued last month for public comment, China’s cyberspace regulator said generative AI services should undergo security reviews before they can operate.

Service providers will also have to verify the real identity of users, as well as provide details about the scale and type of data they use, their underlying algorithms and other technical information.