Technology

Since the release of ChatGPT late last year, Chinese tech companies have been rushing to release their own chatbots. But given the Chinese government’s tight grip on information and speech, how will chatbots developed by Chinese tech companies fare on the world stage?

After TikTok’s recent high-profile congressional hearing, the question on everyone’s lips is what happens next — is a total ban likely? But the larger issue, says academic Sarah Kreps, is whether the US risks winning the battle of ideas and ideals but losing the war.

With the deluge of short-form videos on various apps and platforms, the line between fact and fiction can be blurred, with some content creators staging videos just to get views and stir up emotions. To combat this, Douyin has come up with a new rule that creators have to label staged videos as such. How effective will this be in preventing creators from going overboard in generating views?

While advanced AI tools like ChatGPT are viewed as a potential threat to jobs, all is not lost as workers can adapt by learning to work with such technology to achieve better outcomes.

The Chinese government has set targets for hydrogen-powered vehicles and diverse uses of hydrogen until 2035 as part of its push to get industries to shift to clean energy. However, given the processes and costs involved, it remains to be seen whether the initiative will gather enough momentum.

While China-US relations have an impact on the US lawmakers’ scrutiny of TikTok, the intense questioning of the social media platform’s data security issues by the US Congress has sparked major global attention, especially towards the threat to the authority of sovereign states globally.

Can patriotism be taken too far in supporting Huawei or any other China-made product regardless of quality? Does Huawei even need this form of support? Zaobao’s China Desk takes a look at Huawei’s outlook, as it seems that it needs more than acts of patriotism to tide it over the difficulties it will face in the coming years.

Erik Baark observes that the US has an added motive for using ‘national security’ to impose various high-tech export restrictions on China — to give itself wriggle room vis-à-vis WTO rules for trade trade and trade restrictions. In fact, many of their policies seem to be mimicking the very Chinese techno-nationalist and neo-mercantilist attitudes that have been criticised by the West, and may or may not achieve their intended effect.

Malaysian academic Goh Chun Sheng ponders the weighty issues thrown up by artificial intelligence, seeking a little assistance from none other than OpenAI’s ChatGPT.