Can China keep generative AI under its control? Well, it contained the internet

theguardian.com:

I t is often said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Something similar applies to western thinking about the People’s Republic of China. When that country’s rulers embarked on their astonishing programme of industrialisation, we said that if they wanted capitalism (and they clearly did) then they would have to have democracy. Their response: we’ll have the capitalism but we’ll give the democracy stuff a miss.

Then, in the 1990s, when they decided that they wanted the internet, Bill Clinton and co opined that if they wanted the net then they would also have to have openness (and, therefore, ultimately, democracy). As before, they went for the internet but passed on the openness bit. And then they went on to build the only technological sector that rivals that of the US and could, conceivably, surpass it in due course.

The resulting hegemonic anxiety has been exceedingly useful for US corporations in their efforts to ward off government regulation of the tech industry. The lobbying message is: “If you cripple us with onerous regulation then China will be the biggest beneficiary, at least in the technologies of the future” – which in this context, is code for generative AI such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Dall-E and the like.

Something happened last week that suggests we are in for another outbreak of hubristic western cant about the supposed naivety of Chinese rulers. On 11 April, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s internet regulator, proposed new rules for governing generative AI in mainland China. The consultation period for comments on the proposals ends on 10 May.

Although previous regulations by this powerful body have addressed tech products and