Report: China’s New AI Regulations

Abstract

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has moved ahead of other jurisdictions in regulating Artificial Intelligence (AI) by enacting a set of regulations aimed at addressing risks associated with AI. This article reviews three key AI specific regulations enacted in the PRC in 2022 and 2023. Together these regulations set out comprehensive obligations on the use of generative AI and algorithmic recommendation services in the PRC. The obligations include general requirements such as to comply with the law and principles of fairness as well as to protect against incorrect political direction and violation of social morality. There are also more specific obligations to achieve those objectives. These include, ensuring the regulator has visibility of certain algorithms by requiring the filing of information about the relevant algorithms. Further there are specific obligations on service providers such as to label training data appropriately, take measures to screen illegal or harmful content, verify the identities of users for some services, protect against fake news and label artificial intelligence generated content as synthetic. The regulations also provide a suite of rights for users, including the right not to be targeted on the basis of their personal characteristics by services using AI algorithms. The obligations under these regulations are significant and it will be interesting to see how the PRC’s regulatory approach impacts the AI industry in the PRC in contrast to other jurisdictions where regulators are still looking at how to regulate AI or taking a different approach. PRC, China, Artificial Intelligence, AI Regulations