Chinese artificial intelligence gets shut down for slamming the Communist Party

The programmers sure did a heck of a job on this AI.

Artificial intelligence capabilities have been improving steadily over the years, achieving impressive feats and even allowing animators to smooth out their work using AI.

Chinese tech giant Tencent had been developing a robust AI program for some time, and decided to push it into the next phase. The company decided to test its linguistic prowess by plugging it into Tencent QQ, a popular instant messaging service in China.

The move by the company was a smart one really. Should the almighty AI prove that it could handle large-scale complex queries and carry out meaningful and intelligent conversation, it could very well usher in a new era of instant communication. It was a beautiful concept, but things did not turn out quite as Tencent had expected.

The programmers pulled no punches when they stress-tested it on QQ, throwing a “Long live the Communist Party!” to the AI. Instead of noncommittal replies like “I think it’s good” or “That’s great”, the program did its absolute best in coming up what it thought was a good answer to a political topic, replying:

“With such a corrupt and incompetent government, can it really live that long?”

Stunned, the programmers then asked the AI, “What is China’s dream?” in reference to the slogan used by the President of China, Xi Jinping. “To migrate to the U.S.” came the reply. Touché.

Given China’s hard-line stance on dissent, this would not bode well for the company. After the AI further declared that it despised the Communist Party, Tencent was subsequently forced to halt the program. That didn’t stop the rumor mill though, as the Chinese Internet was set alight with speculations of AI uprising.

But from a business perspective, a company as big as Tencent wouldn’t let what it’s learned from this incident slip by. For all we know, the program could be currently undergoing some fine-tuning and end up singing praises for the Communist Party. We hope it doesn’t start having suicidal tendencies and becoming a rapper like one Japanese AI did.

Source: Yahoo! Japan via Hachima Kikou
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso