China has introduced a chatbot fashioned after Xi Jinping, utilizing a collection of his writings and speeches, including over a dozen books credited to the leader.
This new addition to digital communication draws from Jinping's official literature, steering away from the futuristic idea of mind-reading technology.
Chinese President Xi Jinping waves during the meeting between members of the standing committee of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee and Chinese and foreign journalists at The Great Hall of People on October 23, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Photo: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Emulating Xi Jinping's Ideology
In the realm of digital interactions, there's a new player on the scene: a chatbot modeled after none other than Xi Jinping, China's prominent leader.
Unlike the futuristic notion of accessing someone's thoughts, this creation draws inspiration from a comprehensive compilation of Jinping's speeches and writings.
The Financial Times reported that rather than employing mind-reading technology, the developers relied on a vast array of his official literature, including over a dozen books purportedly authored by Jinping himself.
This reservoir also encompasses government regulations, policy documents, state media reports, and other authorized publications, all of which contribute to the chatbot's training dataset.
Xi Jinping's political ideology, dubbed "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," has taken shape under his leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In line with this philosophy, the chatbot has been programmed using a range of official literature, comprising over 12 purported books authored by President Xi.
This training corpus encompasses government directives, policy papers, state media coverage, and various other official publications.
The chatbot's training dataset featured a staggering 86,000 references to Xi Jinping, emphasizing the alignment of citizens' thoughts, politics, and actions with the Party Central Committee.
With such language dominating its training material, one can only imagine the conversational tone this chatbot might adopt.
While the technology remains restricted from public access, it's currently operational within a research facility overseen by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), signaling potential future deployment on a broader scale.
The model serves as a fundamental chatbot equipped with capabilities to field inquiries, generate reports, condense data, and facilitate Chinese-English translation.
Nonetheless, its probable dissemination of Xi Jinping's ideologies spanning politics, economics, and culture renders it significant.
Chinese AI Regulations and Implications
This initiative emerges amidst ongoing efforts by Chinese authorities to propagate Xi Jinping's ideologies and bolster the prominence of his authoritarian regime.
Notably, Xi's purported authorship of over a dozen books often commands attention at the nation's book expos.
Major news platforms prominently feature content from official state media outlets, spotlighting Xi. Additionally, the integration of his political doctrine into educational curricula, even for children as young as ten, underscores the potential utility of the chatbot within educational settings.
China's strict regulations on AI models mean that major Western offerings like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are absent from the market. The CAC mandates that AI providers in the country uphold core socialist values and refrain from generating content that challenges state authority.
Consequently, domestic companies like Baidu and Alibaba are compelled to tightly regulate their AI models, particularly concerning topics related to Xi Jinping or other sensitive subjects.
This poses a significant hurdle for many companies since a considerable portion of their model training data comprises English language content.
This reliance on English data raises the risk of generating responses that violate China's strict speech regulations.
