There are already numerous alarms relating to the ability of ChatGPT to generate fake news on the most diverse topics. The thoughtless use of the OpenAI chatbot, together with the harsh Chinese laws, could however cost a man of Gansu dearlyin Northern China, arrested on suspicion of using ChatGPT to generate fake news.
According to what he reports The Verge, the man’s situation would be doubly serious. In the first place, he would not follow the Beijing anti-AI guidelineswhich led to the ban of ChatGPT throughout China already at the end of February and which prohibit the use of any AI (including those developed within national borders) for the generation of fake news.
Secondly, the Chinese citizen would have used AI to spread false information on the web: the accusation against the man, simply called Hong, is in fact that he has generated several articles relating to a fatal accident on the internal railway line, or a derailment that would have caused numerous victims. The Chinese police have already explained to the South China Morning Post that those spread by man would be “false information”.
The publications would have started on April 25, with about twenty very similar posts, differing only in a few small details, all on the same event and on the same platform, the blogging portal Baijiahao. The man’s motives are not yet cleareven if the latter has already admitted to the police that he used ChatGPT to write the contents, only to then spread them manually with created accounts ad hoc.
Before being removed, fake items were seen by at least 15,000 people across China, although it does not appear that they have had any repercussions on the country’s internal security. Despite this, Hong’s actions have been classified under the broad spectrum of crimes known as “picking quarrels and creating troubles”a very broad definition used by Chinese jurisprudence to include many crimes, including the creation and dissemination of fake news.
