THE INCREASING USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS STOKING PRIVACY CONCERNS IN CHINA
Robot newscasters Kodomoroid and Otonaroid meet the press |
As artificial intelligence
(AI) and big data technologies become more prevalent, a survey has found that
three out of four people in China are worried about the threat that AI poses to
their privacy, challenging the popular notion that the Chinese care little
about giving up personal data.
State broadcaster
China Central Television (CCTV) and Tencent Research surveyed 8,000 respondents
on their attitudes toward AI as part of CCTV’s China Economic Life Survey. The
results show that 76.3% see certain forms of AI as a threat to their privacy,
even as they believe that AI holds much development potential and will permeate
different industries. About half of the respondents said that they believe AI
is already affecting their work life, while about a third see AI as a threat to
their jobs.
Anxiety has risen
over how intrusive AI will be and if they will steal jobs away from humans as
companies increasingly deploy the technology, from recommending videos and
songs to replacing cashiers with facial recognition and mobile payments. The
World Bank estimates that three out of four jobs in China can be replaced by
automation by 2030.
The CCTV-Tencent
survey findings reinforce the view that Chinese consumers are becoming more
aware and vocal about their privacy and how their personal data is used. The
conventional wisdom up to recently has been that Chinese users care little
about privacy, that they accept the trade-off of giving up a large amount of
personal data in return for the convenience provided by services that rely on
that data.
Tencent’s WeChat
messaging unit said in January it did not spy on user conversations nor
retained records, after Li Shufu, the founder and chairman of carmaker Zhejiang
Geely Holding Group, reportedly said that Tencent chairman Pony Ma Huateng “is
watching us through WeChat everyday because he can see whatever he wants”.
Ant Financial in
January apologised for making the opt-in to its Sesame Credit third-party
commercial credit scoring service the default when users opened a new report in
its app, a move that angered some users who felt the company was misleading them
into handing over their data. Baidu, the operator of China’s largest online
search engine, was accused by a Chinese consumer rights protection group of
collecting personal information without obtaining users’ permission.
The Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said Baidu, Ant Financial and
Beijing ByteDance Technology, which runs popular news aggregator Jinri Toutiao,
had been negligent in telling users about how collected personal data is used,
following a series of media reports about how the services operated by those
three companies have misled users and violated their privacy.
In addition, the
regulator said it will monitor the policies of the companies, warning them of
severe punishment for any violations. It did not elaborate about potential
penalties. — South China Morning Post .
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