Boox recently switched its AI assistant from Microsoft Azure GPT-3 to a language model created by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
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Testing shows the new AI assistant heavily censors certain topics. It refuses to criticize China or its allies, including Russia, Syria’s Assad regime, and North Korea. The system even blocks references to “Winnie the Pooh” - a term that’s banned in China because it’s used to mock President Xi Jinping.
When asked about sensitive topics, the assistant either dodges questions or promotes state narratives. For example, when discussing Russia’s role in Ukraine, it frames the conflict as a “complex geopolitical situation” triggered by NATO expansion concerns. The system also spreads Chinese state messaging about Tiananmen Square instead of addressing historical facts.
When users tried to bring attention to the censorship on Boox’s Reddit forum, their posts were removed. The company hasn’t made any official statement about the situation, but users are reporting that the AI assistant is currently unavailable.
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In China, every AI model has to pass a government review to make sure it follows “socialist values” before it can launch. These systems aren’t allowed to create any content that goes against official government positions.
We’ve already seen what this means in practice: Baidu’s ERNIE-ViLG image AI won’t process any requests about Tiananmen Square, and while Kling’s video generator refuses to show Tiananmen Square protests, it has no problem creating videos of a burning White House.
Some countries are already taking steps to address these concerns. Taiwan, for example, is developing its own language model called “Taide” to give companies and government agencies an AI option that’s free from Chinese influence.
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This has two issues with it that are sourced from the fact that most people here are likely from the States or similar. Namely:
This aside, I personally am irritated by the quantity moreso than anything else. As I said elsewhere, it’s the same few users, and I find it obsessive. It stops sounding to me like “I want people to be aware of particular issues from China” and starts sounding to me like “I want to bombard people with all possible negativity about China until they hate everything related to the place as much as I do.”
Thanks to these folks, Beehaw virtually always has at least one post about China or Russia on its front page. Often several. Credit where it’s due; I’ve seen a pro-Palestine post here and there, which I appreciate. But Christ, I’m sick of the rest. Blocks are fair, but I feel like that just hides the issue rather than solving it. I feel like I’m seeing a propaganda mill in action, and I don’t like the idea of just ignoring it.
The only people who claim that legitimate criticism of the Chinese government is “sinophobia” are 1) the Chinese government, 2) their trolls and 3) tankies.