China's AI boom continues as 40 new models clear regulatory hurdles for public use
Key Points
- China has approved more than 40 artificial intelligence models for public use within six months of introducing regulations, with companies such as Xiaomi and 4Paradigm recently receiving approval for their large language models (LLMs).
- The regulatory framework, introduced in August, requires Chinese tech companies to obtain government approval for LLMs intended for public use, reflecting China's strategy to both promote and control AI technology.
- Despite the regulation, an experiment found that it is still possible to prompt Chinese LLMs to discuss sensitive topics, raising questions about the effectiveness of the approval process in aligning AI behavior with the preferences of the Chinese Communist Party.
In the first six months since China began regulating AI models, the country has approved more than 40 models for public use, with the latest batch of 14 large language models (LLMs) granted last week. The recipients include Xiaomi Corp, 4Paradigm, and 01.AI, Reuters reports. Beijing began requiring tech companies to seek approval for their LLMs for public use in August, underscoring the nation's approach to AI development while maintaining control over the technology. The first batch of AI models approved included Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance. One of the most interesting questions will be how effective these approval processes are. A recent experiment showed that you can get Chinese LLMs to talk about topics that the CCP probably doesn't want them to talk about.
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