China's Generative AI Interim Measures

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the Interim Measures in July 2023 together with six other agencies, including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Public Security. They apply to generative AI services offered to the public within mainland China. Research and development that is not offered to the public is largely excluded. The content rules require providers to uphold "core socialist values" and not generate content that undermines state power, national unity or social stability, or that spreads false or harmful information. Providers must also take steps against discrimination, protect intellectual property and trade secrets, and respect personal rights such as privacy and reputation. On training data, providers must use lawful sources, avoid infringing intellectual property, have a legal basis such as consent for personal information, and improve the quality, truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity and diversity of their data. Human data labeling must follow clear rules and be checked for quality. The measures connect to earlier regulations. Services with "public opinion attributes or social mobilization capacity" must undergo security assessments and file their algorithms under the 2022 algorithm recommendation rules, and generated content must be labeled under the deep synthesis rules. The CAC maintains the filing system and publishes lists of filed services. The April 2023 draft was stricter. It required generated content to be true and accurate, which would have been nearly impossible for language models that can hallucinate. The final text softened this to a duty to take effective measures to improve accuracy and reliability, and it added language supporting innovation. The measures do not ban all foreign AI. Instead, they let the CAC take technical measures against services from outside China that violate the rules.