China arrests first man for creating fake news using ChatGPT

Law enforcement officers in China have detained a man who was spreading fake news generated by the “smart” chatbot ChatGPT, informs publication of the South China Morning Post (SCMP), citing the police. According to him, this is the first case of detention of a person in connection with the use of a bot based on artificial intelligence (AI).

The incident took place in the Chinese province of Gansu. A man named Hong is suspected of using AI to generate and distribute fictitious news through multiple social media accounts. According to the police report, the detainee “used artificial intelligence technology to fabricate false and untrue information.”

The fictitious news item that caught the attention of the Cyber ​​Police claimed that nine people were allegedly killed in a train accident on April 25, but in fact there was no such incident. The fake news article was posted by over 20 accounts on the Baijiahao social network, which is owned by Baidu. Before this “news” attracted the attention of law enforcement officers, it had been clicked more than 15,000 times.

The publication notes that according to Chinese law, video and photo materials created using deep synthesis technologies must be clearly marked so as not to mislead the public.

On May 6, it was reported that the Chinese technology company IFlytek plans to create a competitor to ChatGPT. Prior to this, on April 7, Alibaba Group unveiled the Tongyi Qianwen generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, which will be used for enterprise communication, e-commerce, Internet search, transportation routing, entertainment, and intelligent voice assistant. In March, Baidu introduced Ernie Bot, an AI chatbot that performs math tasks and creates videos and images.