Last 12 months was a banner 12 months for artificial intelligence. Due to products like ChatGPT, many tens of millions of individuals at the moment are directly interacting with AI, talking about it, and grappling with its impact daily.
A few of those persons are policymakers, who’ve been trying hard to reply to the issues AI products pose without reducing our ability to harness their power.
So initially of this 12 months, my colleagues and I looked world wide for signs of how AI regulations are more likely to change this 12 months. We summarized what we found here.
In China, one among the main moves to be looking out for in 2024 is whether or not the country will follow within the European Union’s footsteps and announce its own comprehensive AI Act. In June of last 12 months, China’s top governing body released an inventory of laws they were working on. An “Artificial Intelligence Law” appeared for the primary time.
The Chinese government is already good at reacting to latest technologies swiftly. China was probably the primary country on this planet to introduce laws on generative AI mere months after ChatGPT’s big break. But a brand new comprehensive law could give China much more control over how AI disrupts (or doesn’t disrupt) the way in which things work today.
But you shouldn’t just take my word for it. I asked several experts on Chinese AI regulations what they think will occur in 2024. So in this text, I’ll share the 4 predominant things they said to expect this 12 months.
1. Don’t expect the Chinese “AI Law” to be finalized soon.
Unlike previous Chinese regulations that concentrate on subsets of AI comparable to deepfakes, this latest law is geared toward the entire picture, and which means it should take quite a lot of time to draft. Graham Webster, a research scholar on the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation, guesses that it’s likely we are going to see a draft of the AI Law in 2024, “however it’s unlikely it should be finalized or effective.”
One big challenge is that even just judging what’s and isn’t AI might be so tricky that attempting to tackle every little thing with one law could also be impractical. “[It’s] all the time a matter in law and tech whether a singular law is vital, or whether it must be addressed by way of its applications in other areas,” says Jeremy Daum, who researches Chinese laws on the Paul Tsai China Center. “So a generative-AI content regulation is smart, but just AI? We’ll see what happens.”
2. China’s government is telling AI firms what they need to avoid
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-owned research institute, drafted an advisory version of the long run AI law in 2023, and it’s a helpful reference for what China wants to realize. One of the interesting items within the document is a “negative list” of areas and existing products that AI firms should stay clear of unless they’ve explicit government approval. It’ll be interesting to see what finally ends up on this list and the way it differs from similar bans set by the EU.
“The list subjects just some products, services, and model development to stringent oversight and was designed with the intention of lowering Chinese businesses’ overall regulatory compliance burden,” says Kristy Loke, a research fellow on the Centre for the Governance of AI, a think tank. The list tells firms exactly where they shouldn’t go to remain in the federal government’s good graces, which should help them to avoid by chance angering Beijing.
3. Third parties may start evaluating AI models
Regulations don’t mean anything in the event that they aren’t enforced. So developing a method to evaluate AI models might be on Chinese regulators’ 2024 checklist, says Jeffrey Ding, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University.
What could that seem like? “One, the event of a national platform for testing and verifying the security and security of models, and two, support for third-party assessment organizations to implement regular reviews,” Ding tells me.
(On that note, I wrote about an enchanting, highly detailed document released by Chinese tech firms and academics last 12 months that suggested ways to judge AI models. You may examine it here.)
4. China is more likely to be lenient on copyright
Generative AI has created a copyright nightmare, and current laws aren’t as much as the job of untangling who owes who what, and why. Angela Zhang, a law professor on the University of Hong Kong, expects more policy guidelines and court decisions from China to make clear potential IP issues next 12 months.
China’s government will likely be lenient to AI firms. “Given the overarching national agenda to encourage the expansion and development of the AI sector, it is rather unlikely Chinese administrative agencies will take an aggressive stance in investigating firms for AI-related infringements. Within the meantime, Chinese courts will take a business-friendly approach in deciding IP cases,” Zhang says.
Pointless to say, I shall be watching all 4 areas in the brand new 12 months and updating you about them within the newsletter.
And if you desire to stay awake so far on tech developments within the US, Europe, and beyond, you must really read my colleagues’ newsletters, like The Algorithm on all things AI and The Technocrat, on power, politics, and tech.
Meet up with China
1. Lai Ching-te (William), the Taiwanese presidential candidate whose political stance was least welcome to Beijing, won the election on Saturday. (Al Jazeera)
- Taiwanese prosecutors arrested a web-based journalist, claiming he published fabricated election poll results as a part of a Chinese disinformation campaign. (Politico)
- Many Taiwanese people worship folk deities with roots in China. Those religious lineages have change into increasingly politicized during this election cycle. (BBC)
2. Microsoft’s AI research lab in Beijing was a successful example of a world research collaboration. Now it’s a liability for the corporate amid US-China political tensions. (Latest York Times $)
3. The Chinese government has spent greater than $65 billion to accumulate Xiongan, a supposedly era-defining smart city. But the town remains to be empty, as people hesitate to maneuver there. (Bloomberg $)
4. The Beijing municipal government bragged about employing a tech company to crack the encryption of Apple’s AirDrop service so as to discover who used it to send anonymous protest messages. (AFP)
5. How has the Great Wall of China survived hundreds of years of degradation? A “living skin” of tiny, rootless plants and microorganisms has helped, in keeping with latest research. (CNN)
6. Ships passing through the Red Sea are broadcasting their links to China to avoid attack by militants in Yemen. (Bloomberg $)
Lost in translation
Chinese tech firms finally returned to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that just concluded in Las Vegas, after a years-long hiatus when China closed its border throughout the pandemic. Still, in keeping with the publication , participants observed that Chinese firms occupied only a fifth to a 3rd as much exhibition space as they did at their peak. They particularly said it’s a pity that Chinese electric-vehicles firms didn’t come to the US to showcase the rapid development of EV manufacturing in China. (The one exception is Xpeng, which drew quite a lot of attention with its flying-car model.) Nevertheless, many firms from other countries mentioned that they source batteries from China.
Yet one more thing
Latest AI models have made it easy to generate songs that closely mimic a singer’s voice. Some musicians hate it and are taking legal motion; others are embracing it. Wan Kwong, a 75-year-old Hong Kong singer, released a song last 12 months that featured an AI-generated clone of his voice in his youth. Together, Wan and his younger self reflected on his long and fruitful artistic journey: “When my voice isn’t what it was, I’ll entrust my life mission to the AI.” It’s one of the touching AI artworks I’ve encountered recently. You may take heed to it here.