from the picking-quarrels-and-provoking-trouble-on-the-Internet dept.
Chinese authorities have detained a man in the Gansu province in Northern China for allegedly using ChatGPT to write fake news articles. The move appears to be one of the first arrests made under China's new anti-AI guidelines, which (among other restrictions) prohibit artificial intelligence services from being misused to distribute "false information."
The suspect, identified only by his surname Hong, is accused of using OpenAI's chatbot to generate news articles describing a fatal train crash that officials say was "false information," according to a police statement reported by South China Morning Post. After discovering the article on April 25th, authorities found multiple versions of the same story with different accident locations had been simultaneously posted to 20 additional accounts on Baidu-owned blogging platform Baijiahao.
Hong claimed he was using ChatGPT to rewrite articles and generate money through internet traffic.
[...] Hong was specifically charged for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" — a catch-all offense that the South China Morning Post says can be applied to suspects accused of creating and / or spreading misinformation online. That isn't the only application of the charge, however, which can also be broadly defined as undermining public order or causing disorder in public places. The wording of the offense is vague and has been widely criticized for its potential to muffle free speech and arrest activists criticizing the Chinese government. Those charged can face a five-to-10-year prison term.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday May 15, @08:55AM (8 children)
At least there, there are consequences for spreading fake news. A little of that wouldn't go amiss in the US.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @10:37AM (5 children)
Nah, the USA should keep its freedoms... That way those who want more freedoms plus the disadvantages (more school shootings, more fake news) that go along with it can go to/stay in the USA. Whereas those who don't can go elsewhere.
If all the countries start to become too much like each other then you start running out of options.
What the USA needs is more consequences to cops, CEOs, etc for injuring/crippling/murdering people. To me that's where the freedom should stop - you should not be allowed to go around murdering people with zero/minor consequences.
It doesn't matter that you're a cop and it was someone else who was trying to SWAT someone else. You're the cop, you're holding the gun, you're responsible for pulling the trigger.
Firemen aren't supposed to just blast water into buildings just because there's a fake report of a fire and somehow they're too cowardly/lazy to investigate properly. Similarly cops aren't supposed to just blast bullets into buildings just because there's a fake report of gunfire.
Same for playing "Simon Says" so you have an excuse to murder some dude: https://youtu.be/OflGwyWcft8 [youtu.be]
(If that victim was really a threat you should not be asking him to move at all, much less towards you).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @05:06PM (4 children)
Cops are much more likely to get away with murder and other crimes, but they also have a right to defend themselves, and they are put in situations where shooting to kill makes sense. That killer cop should have been convicted, but he caught a break since Daniel Shaver was white.
If you push for police to face consequences for every injury and killing they cause, you will eventually get a breakdown in public order as they stop inserting themselves into risky situations or quit. Then the pendulum will swing back. We've already seen this with the complete reversal of "Defund the Police" [nytimes.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15, @05:40PM
I'm all for cutting cops some slack from accidental killings - e.g. they get shot at, they have a good reason to shoot back and shoot, but accidentally kill the wrong people. Shit happens.
Heck even honest but fatal mistakes.
But cutting them slack for murder? Nah. Fuck that. Such cops are less likely to be net contributors to public order. They might even have murdered other people before they got caught on video. It's not public order when you're going around murdering people.
https://youtu.be/xxvINcEdLRE?t=47 [youtu.be]
Plenty of cops purposely tasing people to death (they've gone through the training, they know what it does and where). It's still murder even if the victims are bad people.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Monday May 15, @06:24PM
Here's an example [texastribune.org] of cops doing just that. Oh wait, it wasn't accountability that kept them away, it was the shooter's superior firepower. My bad. Guess we're headed for a breakdown no matter what.
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16, @02:01AM (1 child)
They're put in far more situations where shooting to kill doesn't make sense.
Not feeling it over here. I think a saner regularization of regulation and consequences would greatly help with abuse of police power. The ability to put people in highly dangerous situations through swatting indicates that there's a desperate need to curb police power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19, @06:47AM
Yeah in countries with a saner police force, swatting wouldn't be a thing because it would be too rare that it worked.
Just because lots of people in a country have guns doesn't mean the cops should be trigger happy. If someone had a gun and you shoot his kid/dog he might be more likely to shoot you even if you were a cop.
You're definitely doing things wrong when your cops are more trigger happy than a US soldier: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/08/504718239/military-trained-police-may-be-slower-to-shoot-but-that-got-this-vet-fired [npr.org]
US soldiers aren't famous for being hesitant to shoot people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday May 16, @11:15PM (1 child)
Such a well thought-out comment. Yes, jail someone for "Fake News" is the law, Donald Trump is re-elected (or worse than Donald Trump) and what's fake news but anything the administration says it is?
You see nothing wrong with this? Might I remind you that in Russia it's illegal to say that they're at war with Ukraine, let alone that they invaded just for land?
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19, @06:50AM
And in China a comedian gets in serious trouble for comparing two dogs to the PLA: https://mothership.sg/2023/05/china-comedian-military-joke-fined/ [mothership.sg]