Chinese Police Arrest Man for Using ChatGPT to Generate, Spread Fake News
In what's thought to be a first, a man has been arrested in China for using artificial intelligence to generate multiple variations of a fake piece of news about a train accident and spreading it online.
As the South China Morning Post reports(Opens in a new window), the man, whose surname is Hong, was arrested by police in China's northwestern province of Gansu. He is accused of using ChatGPT to generate a fake story about nine people being killed in a train accident and then posting the news simultaneously across 20 accounts on a blog platform run by search engine Baidu called Baijiahao. In total, the posts received more than 15,000 views.
Cybersecurity officers managed to trace the story back to a personal media platform company owned by Hong, which triggered a search of his home/computer and subsequent arrest. Hong has since confessed, explaining that he used ChatGPT to generate different variations on the story so as to circumvent the duplication checks Baijiahao carries out on new posts. He created the fake news by inputting "elements of trending social stories in China" which had occurred over the past few years.
It's unclear why Hong decided to generate and spread the train accident story, but he now faces a long prison sentence if convicted. The crime he is accused of committing is "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," which is China's catch-all crime for spreading false information and typically carries up to a five-year prison sentence. However, offenses deemed as severe can see that extended to 10 years.
ChatGPT isn't officially available in China, but can still be accessed by using a VPN. Chinese companies are producing alternative chatbots, such as Baidu's Ernie Bot, but so far none have come close to
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