China registers first arrest for misuse of ChatGPT
By Anushka Singh
It was a matter of time before the law caught up with it. The Chinese police have reportedly detained a man for allegedly generating fake news of a train crash and disseminating it online using artificial intelligence technology to "concoct information" and post it on multiple accounts. It is said to be China's first arrest for misuse of ChatGPT.
The northwestern Gansu province police said a suspect surnamed Hong had been detained for "using artificial intelligence technology to concoct false and untrue information". When the cyber division of a county police bureau spotted a fake news article that claimed nine people had been killed in a local train accident on April 25 that seemed fake, simultaneously, cybersecurity officers in Kongtong county found the article posted by more than 20 accounts on Baijiahao, a blog-style platform run by Chinese search engine giant Baidu. It went on to receive more than 15,000 clicks by the time the authorities learned about it.
The Gansu public security department said Hong was suspected of the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble", a charge that normally carries a maximum sentence of five years. Yet, in cases deemed severe, offenders can be jailed for 10 years and given additional penalties. This follows Beijing's first provisions to regulate the use of “deepfake” technology that officially took effect in January 2023. The police said they traced the origins of the article to a company owned by the suspect Hong, which operated personal media platforms registered in Shenzhen in Guangdong province in southern China. About 10 days later a police team searched Hong's home and his computer and detained him.
Hong confessed to bypassing Baijiahao's duplication check function to publish on multiple accounts he had acquired. He reportedly input the elements of trending social stories in China from past years into ChatGPT to quickly produce different versions of the same fake story and uploaded them to his Baijiahao accounts. While ChatGPT is not directly available to Chinese IP addresses, Chinese users can still access its service if they have a reliable VPN connection.
China's top internet regulator has long voiced concern that unchecked development and use of deep synthesis technology could lead to its use in criminal activities such as online scams or defamation. As ChatGPT has gone viral in recent months, China's law enforcement agencies have voiced suspicion even warnings, about the technology.
In one of the first comments on the chatbot made by the Chinese security apparatus, police in Beijing had specifically warned the public in February to be wary of “rumours” generated by ChatGPT.
It's a matter of time before the law must be amended to meet the needs triggered by the neo-powerful technology whose rate of growth is phenomenal to say the least. More importantly, it adapts and ... too cleverly for comfort and, makes it increasingly difficult to pinpoint onus and culpability to offences that will need to be acknowledged and, soon, addressed.
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