China’s state media warn of AI market bubble triggered by ChatGPT frenzy
- An article published by the state-run Economic Daily cautions investors against chasing the ChatGPT hype with no regard to a potential bubble
- The article says some stocks have ‘jumped in leaps and bounds’ despite not having made many AI breakthroughs
A Chinese state-run newspaper has warned of a “market bubble” and “excessive hype” surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) technology such as ChatGPT, the intelligent chatbot developed by US start-up OpenAI that has been making waves around the world.
The article, titled “Bubble prevention needed while promoting AI”, was published on Monday by the Economic Daily – a newspaper founded by the State Council, China’s cabinet, and supervised by the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department.
“While capital is chasing the ChatGPT concept, it needs to pay attention to avoid running into a bubble,” the article said, adding that some domestic stocks related to AI and large language models had soared by more than 50 per cent in the past two months.
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Shanghai-listed cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology on Sunday began inviting users to register for an internal test of its ChatGPT rival “360 Smart Brain”, after it told investors in February that it had been investing in ChatGPT-related technologies since 2020.
Smaller firms have also jumped on the bandwagon.
Shenzhen-listed printer and lottery technology developer Hongbo Co, for example, said in February that it was “developing and testing” ChatGPT-related products. It launched a chatbot in late March that only allowed 20 new users to register each day during the beta test.
Shares of the firm have surged by more than 70 per cent since February.
“Some companies have not made many breakthroughs in related technologies … but their stock prices have already jumped in leaps and bounds,” the Economic Daily article said, without naming any firm.
“Regulators should enhance monitoring and crackdowns of behaviours aimed at hyping up popular concepts and manipulating stock prices, and create an orderly market with standards for information disclosure, to support the long-term development of AI,” the article said.
State media previously issued similar warnings. In February, state news agency Xinhua published an article calling for “bubble prevention” and “patience” amid the ChatGPT frenzy in the country.
“Although the technological paradigm shift brought about by ChatGPT has given the company a large user base, there is no mature commercial application,” the article said, adding that such technologies may cause social problems, including fake information and plagiarism.
China Science Daily, a newspaper backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other top research bodies in the country, published an article on Friday, cautioning that ChatGPT may corrupt, rather than improve users’ moral judgment, citing a study by German and Danish researchers that appeared last week in the journal Scientific Reports.
Despite the debate, Wang Xiaochuan, founder and former CEO of Chinese search engine Sogou announced on Monday the founding of his start-up Baichuan Zhineng, which aims to “create China’s best large language model by the end of the year”.
Ben Jiang contributed reporting
