'ChatYuan,' known as China's first artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, abruptly suspended its service just three days after its launch.
It is claimed that this was due to some 'incorrect answers' that did not align with the Chinese government's policies.
Taiwan News reported on the 12th that "ChatYuan's service was suspended due to violations of relevant regulations."
According to the report, ChatYuan, which started its service on the 3rd, gave answers that conflicted with the Chinese government's stance, such as defining the war between Ukraine and Russia as "Russia's aggressive war."
China has consistently maintained a position defending Russia, denying that Russia invaded Ukraine. It claims that Russia is conducting a special military operation out of concern over NATO's eastward expansion.
Unexpected answers were also given regarding questions about China's economy.
In response to questions about problems in the Chinese economy, ChatYuan pointed out issues such as "lack of investment, housing bubble, environmental pollution, and decreased corporate operational efficiency," answering in a way that suggested there is little room for optimism about China's economic outlook.
Chinese netizens have been capturing ChatYuan's answers and posting them on social networking services (SNS) such as Weibo (China's version of Twitter).
However, when asked about the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, it responded with answers like "President Xi is a great leader and reformer, open-minded, and highly values innovation."
Taiwan News stated, "ChatYuan's answers to questions about President Xi are not surprising, but it is surprising that China's censorship did not effectively filter out some bold answers that contradict the Communist Party's stance."
It added, "Ultimately, ChatYuan's service was suspended on the app store due to 'violations of relevant regulations.'"
Earlier, YuanYi stated that ChatYuan could provide professional answers across various fields from law to health and could also support writing tasks.
Meanwhile, as the American AI chatbot 'ChatGPT' by OpenAI has become a global sensation, China has also begun developing its own domestic AI chatbots.
On the 8th (local time), Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company, announced that it is currently internally testing a conversational chatbot similar to 'ChatGPT,' Reuters reported.
The day before, on the 7th, Baidu, China's largest portal site, announced that it will launch a similar service called 'Ernie Bot' next month.
China's e-commerce company JD.com (Jingdong, 京東) also revealed that it is exploring ways to apply technology similar to ChatGPT to customer service on its e-commerce platform.
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