A Chinese man, name only given as Hong, was arrested on the charge of using ChatGPT to generate and promote fake news about a train crash on May 7 2023.
The arrest is reportedly the first arrest for behavior connected to the ChatGPT artificial intelligence bot.
Chinese ChatGPT Fake News Arrest Explained
The man, surname Hong, was arrested in the district of Kongtong. According to police charges, Hong has been accused of generating fake news alleging that a fatal train crash killed nine people in the province of Gansu.
The report of Hong’s arrest was posted on the Chinese social media site WeChat, along with photos of the law enforcement action.
Police say that 21 blog accounts on the Chinese service Baidu posted articles about the fake train crash. The officials said the posts were viewed over 15,000 times.
The fake posts were tracked to a company owned by Hong which was registered in the Shenzhen area. Gansu police said that Hong admitted to them that he used ChatGPT to generate the train crash news.
The arrest follows the decision by China to put into effect new regulations that apply to deep fake technology. The law took effect in January of 2023.
Hong was charged with the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which carries a maximum criminal penalty of 10 years in prison.
ChatGPT is officially blocked in China but can be accessed through the use of a virtual private network (VPN).
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.