Inside China’s plan for AI: shape reality and enforce its power

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The big story

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We’ve heard about the dangers of AI running wild, but what kind of risks come from the tech being highly regulated and controlled?

For the Chinese Communist Party, that’s the plan. The country’s history of censorship and surveillance is extending to its approach to AI, writes Business Insider’s Linette Lopez.

The CCP’s plan for AI is about shaping reality and enforcing its power, according to internal documents. To that end, the government has final sign-off on large language models and the data they were trained on.

In short, it’s less “move fast and break things” and more “proceed in a government-approved fashion and avoid upsetting the status quo.”

China’s push to exert control over AI comes at a critical juncture for the country.

As Linette has previously reported, China’s bright economic future has dimmed considerably. And its recovery plan — China shock 2.0 — won’t come easily or be welcomed by the rest of the world.

So, as AI chatbots become the new method of receiving information, it’s no wonder the CCP is making sure AI is getting accurate its messages across.

However, this isn’t a call for a libertarian approach to generative AI.

As we’ve seen recently, a lack of guardrails comes with its own set of problems. The end results range from funny (don’t make your pizza with glue) to infuriating (AI misusing creative work).

And in the face of these mishaps, the response from the people in charge rarely exudes the confidence of someone completely in control. Instead, it feels like we’re all going along for an AI-led drive and hoping for the best.

So putting in some types of rules around the tech — albeit not to the degree the CCP has — seems like a good idea.

But that poses another issue. How can we expect lawmakers, who often struggle with the basics of tech, to grasp something people on the cutting edge can barely wrap their heads around?

In the meantime, China could extend the AI tools of control and surveillance it creates to other regimes with similar ideologies.

It’s a distressing outcome.

“The digital curtain AI can build in our imaginations will be much more impenetrable than iron, making it impossible for societies to cooperate in a shared future,” Linette writes.

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In other news

What’s happening today

• IATA’s annual report on the air transport industry will be released today.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London. Grace Lett, associate editor, in Chicago. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London.