China’s leadership wants to embrace AI advances but also control risks, as ChatGPT shocks with power and popularity

China’s leaders have gone public with their concerns about the potential risks from artificial general intelligence (AGI), a more powerful version of current AI technologies, as Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT product continues to take the global tech community by storm.

In a statement issued by state media outlet Xinhua on Friday summarising the Politburo’s quarterly meeting on China’s social and economic development, the Politburo – headed by President Xi Jinping – concluded that China must “pay attention to the development of AGI, create an ecosystem for innovation but at the same time take risk prevention into account”.

This is the first time that Beijing has included AGI within a Politburo statement, reflecting the country’s mixed signals to date on where it stands on ChatGPT-style services. It appears that while advancement of AI is desired, there are also concerns about the consequences of such actions.

ChatGPT is not available for China-based users, and China’s internet regulator has already published regulations trying to restrict AI-generated content to within official Chinese narratives.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the internet watchdog, earlier this month drafted new rules demanding generative AI developers pass over their products for a security assessment before being made available to the public. This would be to avoid content being generated that contravenes rules relating to discussion of regime subversion, violence or pornography.