ChatGPT User In China Taken Into Custody For Generating and Sharing Fake News

Chinese police claimed to have recently detained a ChatGPT user for allegedly fabricating a false train crash report using the chatbot’s AI.

It’s one of the first enforcement actions under a recently passed Chinese law governing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated “deepfakes,” which are fake digital images, videos, or other media that appear realistic.

A man using only his last name, Hong, allegedly used ChatGPT to fabricate a news story about a collision that allegedly claimed the lives of nine construction workers in the northwest Chinese province of Gansu. The fabricated story was quickly spread across 21 accounts on a well-known social media site, all of which belonged to a southern Chinese media outlet.

Like most foreign websites and applications, ChatGPT is technically unavailable in China thanks to the country’s “Great Firewall,” which censors the internet for residents. But determined individuals can gain access via commonly available “virtual private network” software that bypasses the firewall.

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The police report did not describe how Hong managed to use ChatGPT.

By the time Gansu security officials realised the article was fake, it had received 15,000 views, according to the report. Police subsequently raided Hong’s residence to collect evidence and then took “criminal coercive measures” against Hong himself. Police use that phrase to describe temporary measures to limit the freedom of a suspect.

The new Chinese deepfake law took effect on January 10. It bans several categories of fake media produced by “deep synthesis technologies” such as machine learning and virtual reality, but offers only vague definitions for many of these forbidden classes.

According to a translation of the law provided by the crowdsourced site China Law Translate, it prohibits deepfakes used in activities that endanger national security, harm the nation’s image or societal public interest, or disturb “economic or social order.” It specifically prohibits the use of such technologies to produce, publish or transmit fake news.