2 - The Social, Cultural and Political Implications of AI in China

This paper examines how AI is developed and deployed in China through an exhaustive study of the interplay of various issues, actors, and contexts. It starts off with discussing and developing a typology of issues related to AI that are unique to China but also find echoes in Asia elsewhere. The paper then explores the multiple roles played by AI researchers and companies as they navigate through the dual challenge of competition and regulation, amidst unpredictable transnational and geopolitical scenarios. The global rollout of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022 became a cause célèbre in China. Apart from giving rise to scholarly discussions and widespread public debate on AI risks and opportunities, the unveiling also served as a backdrop to a slew of activities in regulatory and technical arenas. Several AI bots and specific policy directives on governing generative AI were released. The topic of AI algorithms and AI-based services has been subject to a host of directives, policies, white papers, resolutions, opinions, norms, provisions, and laws, in the last few years. In this light, the proposed paper looks critically at narratives, policies, and strategies to interrogate the ways in which AI is conceptualised and governed in China. The paper contributes towards scholarship on social, cultural and political implications of AI and makes the case that AI in China deserves closer attention from scholars interested in studying the changing nature of human-technology relations in the wake of AI.