Hong Kong testing its own ChatGPT-style tool

HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s government is testing the city’s own ChatGPT-style tool for its employees, with plans to eventually make it available to the public, its innovation minister said after OpenAI took extra steps to block access from the city and from other unsupported regions.

Secretary of Innovation, Technology and Industry Sun Dong said on a radio program Saturday that his office was testing the artificial intelligence program, whose Chinese name translates as “document assistance application for civil servants,” to further improve more your capabilities. is available to the rest of the government this year.

The program was developed by a generative AI research and development center led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with several other universities.

Sun said the model will provide functions such as graphic and video design in the future. How well this would compare to ChatGPT’s capabilities was unclear.

Sun’s office did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about the model’s functions.

Sun said on the radio program that industry participants and the government would play a role in the future development of the model.

“Given the current situation in Hong Kong, it is difficult for Hong Kong to get giant companies like Microsoft and Google to subsidize such projects, so the government had to start doing so,” he said.

Beijing and Washington are engaged in a race for AI supremacy, with China aiming to become the global leader in AI by 2030.

China, including Hong Kong and neighboring Macau, is not on the list of “supported countries and territories” by OpenAI, one of the best-known artificial intelligence companies.

The maker of ChatGPT did not explain why certain territories were excluded, but said that accounts in those locations trying to access its services may be blocked.

According to a post on OpenAI’s online forum and local media reports, the company announced in an email to some users that it would take additional steps to block connections from regions that were not on the approved list starting July 9. the last movement.

Francis Fong, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said it was difficult to say whether the program’s capabilities in Hong Kong could match ChatGPT’s. With the input of AI companies in the city, Fong said he believed he could technologically keep up with the standards.

“Will it become the top? Maybe it’s not necessarily that close. But I believe it won’t be far behind,” he said.

He also said that a locally developed AI program could more accurately address local language and localized issues, but added that it would “make sense” if the final product looked “politically correct.”

Like most foreign websites and apps, ChatGPT is technically unavailable in China due to the country’s firewall, which censors the Internet for residents. Determined individuals can still gain access through commonly available “virtual private networks” that bypass restrictions.

Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu have already launched mostly Chinese-language AI models similar to ChatGPT for public and commercial use. However, these AI models must comply with China’s censorship rules.

In May, China’s cyberspace academy said an AI chatbot was being trained under President Xi Jinping doctrine, a clear reminder of the ideological parameters within which Chinese AI models will operate.

Also in May, SenseTime, a leading Chinese artificial intelligence company, launched SenseChat for users in Hong Kong, where most of the population speaks Cantonese as their mother tongue rather than Mandarin. But a check on Tuesday found that the app could not provide answers to politically sensitive questions, such as what the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown and from Hong Kong protests in 2019 they were about.

During the 1989 crackdown, Chinese troops opened fire on student-led pro-democracy protesters, resulting in hundreds if not thousands of deaths, and it continues to be a taboo subject in mainland China.

In 2019, protests that began over unpopular Hong Kong legislation turned into an anti-government movement and the biggest political challenge to Beijing’s rule since the former British colony returned to China in 1997.