China’s Censors Are Afraid of What AI Chatbots Might Say

Could politics put the breaks on China's AI development?

This piece first ran in Foreign Policy on March 3, 2023. ChatGPT has made quite the stir in China: virtually every major tech company is keen on developing its own artificial intelligence chatbot. Baidu has announced plans to release its own strain sometime next month. This newfound obsession is in line with paramount Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s strategic prioritization of AI development—dating back to at least 2017—in China’s race to become the world’s dominant AI player and ultimately a “science and technology superpower.” And while the development of large language model (LLM) bots such…

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