The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and six other ministries issued temporary rules for managing generative artificial intelligence (AI) services, in a bid to promote the sound development of the AI sector, safeguard national security and public interest, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and entities. Experts said that the move means China has set the development boundaries of generative AI technology in legal terms and laid the foundation for China to participate in the administration of the global AI industry. The temporary rule, which will be implemented from August 15, emphasizes that the use of generative AI should follow China's laws. Any act of generating or transmitting illegal content will be terminated on the spot, and illegal content will be erased. Generative AI technology providers should offer specific data processing training in line with relevant laws of intellectual property and personal information protection. The CAC said the rapid development of generative AI technology has brought new opportunities for economic and social development, while also giving rise to problems such as false information, infringement of personal rights, data security, and bias and discrimination, noting that how to co-ordinate the development and safety of generative AI has aroused all parties' concern.
The CAC emphasized that the rule was made to coordinate the healthy development of generative AI technology and prevent problems. The rule encourages the innovative development of generative AI, and the government will implement accommodative, prudential and classified rules for the sector. In addition, the rule will be applied to generative AI technology users providing text, image, audio and video content to the Chinese public, and it will not be applied to AI users in professional organizations including educational, cultural and research institutes. The U.S. and China are leading the global AI industry based on the number of AI-related essays, Zuo Xiaodong, Professor at the School of Public Affairs of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), told the Global Times.
China's AI industry is experiencing a development boom, with the core industry's scale reaching CNY500 billion and the number of AI enterprises exceeding 4,300, said Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xu Xiaolan at the opening ceremony of the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held on July 6 in Shanghai. Zuo pointed out that the issuance of the temporary rule is a concrete start to China's AI regulation, and it will help the country participate in AI industry administration as one of the global industry leaders, the China Daily reports.
