China Arrests Man For Purportedly Producing Fake News Using ChatGPT

For all its prowesses, artificial intelligence has also thrown a spanner in the works in the ever-persistent fight against disinformation. Just recently, researchers found about 50 news sites that were being powered by AI “journalists”—and those were only detected because they neglected to omit error messages churned out by chatbots.

In the latest development of humans’ race to keep up with the speedy advances of machines, Chinese police have arrested a man for purportedly using ChatGPT to create fake news and publish it online. 

The suspect, referred to only by his surname Hong, allegedly used the popular language-processing tool to generate a story about a local train crash that had killed nine people, per the South China Morning Post. This is potentially the first detention made by the country over the abuse of the robot.

According to the police, the suspect fed the chatbot snippets of trending articles from previous years to generate variations of the same disinformation and shared them on his social accounts.

Cybersecurity officials in the Kongtong county of the northwestern province of Gansu said that by the time they discovered the false news, it had already been reposted by more than 20 accounts on Baijiahao, a blog-like social network, and had been opened more than 15,000 times.

After searching his computer at his home, authorities detained Hong for “[concocting] false and untrue information” using AI technology, the local police department announced in a statement.

Although ChatGPT is blocked in China, willful users can still access the chatbot through a virtual private network (VPN).

In January, China’s Cyberspace Administration officially rolled out laws to prevent the misuse of AI technology, while encouraging “the healthy development of internet information services.” Considering that the regulations are fairly new, this arrest will likely be the first of many similar crackdowns.

Hong is accused of committing the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which can result in him being put behind bars for up to five years. In more severe cases, however, those charged with such crimes can be punished with a maximum sentence of 10 years, plus other penalties.

[via VICE and South China Morning Post, cover illustration 267892739 © Sandris Kuzmickis | Dreamstime.com]