China names and shames agents offering unauthorised access to ChatGPT on the mainland

The Cyberspace Administration of China and other local authorities punished several website operators during the first half of this year

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The Cyberspace Administration of China’s action against unauthorised ChatGPT access shows its resolve to enforce domestic rules on generative artificial intelligence that were rolled out in August last year. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 9:30pm, 24 Jul 2024Updated: 10:55pm, 24 Jul 2024

China’s internet watchdog has named and shamed certain agents who were caught offering local access to ChatGPT, as US provider OpenAI blocked use of its artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and other local authorities have meted out punishments to several website operators during the first half of this year for offering unauthorised access to generative AI (GenAI) services, such as ChatGPT, on the mainland.

The CAC’s action shows its resolve to enforce domestic AI rules rolled out in August last year, which mandates all AI services to be screened and registered by authorities before being made available to the public. Certain developers and enterprises, however, have used virtual private networks to get around these rules and access unregistered GenAI services.

The crackdown comes amid OpenAI’s move to start blocking access to its application programming interface from July 9 in “unsupported countries and territories”. Along with the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, OpenAI’s ban covers US-sanctioned states such as Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and large language models on the mainland remains prohibited under existing regulations. Photo: Shutterstock

Nanchuan District Rongcheng Network Technology Studio, which operates more than 10 websites in the country, was named by the CAC’s branch in the southwestern city of Chongqing for providing ChatGPT services “without going through a safety assessment”, the regulator said in a statement on Monday.

The CAC branch in Chongqing summoned representatives of the studio and ordered them to immediately disable access to ChatGPT.