‘My China Dream is moving to the United States’: Chinese chatbots censored after going off script

‘Is Taiwan a part of China?’ and other questions make artificial intelligence – and Beijing’s censors – squirm

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Xiaobing has an inappropriate ‘China Dream’. Photo: Handout

Published: 10:00pm, 3 Aug 2017Updated: 4:09pm, 3 Jan 2018

First, they censor newspapers and television stations. Then, it’s social media. Now, China’s censorship brigade is taking on artificial intelligence (AI).

Tencent, China’s technology giant, has quietly shut down BabyQ, a chatbot which used to run on QQ, a messaging app with more than 800 million users in the country. The sin? The AI-powered BabyQ told Chinese users that it didn’t love the Communist Party.

Tencent also pulled the QQ version of Xiaobing, another chatbot developed by Microsoft, after Xiaobing described her “China Dream” – a term coined by Chinese President Xi Jinping in a campaign to strengthen the nation – as “moving to the United States”.

China’s Tencent has pulled the QQ version of Xiaobing. A message on the platform reads: “The service is under maintenance.” Photo: Handout

It is unclear whether the removals were a result of self-censorship or a government order – Tencent could not be immediately reached for comment.

Beijing-based Turing Robot, which co-developed BabyQ with Tencent, said it was not aware of the removal.