Chinese authorities have banned automakers from using terms such as "smart driving" and "autonomous driving" for ads in the country, according to Reuters. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has tightened its rules for advertising driving assistance features following a fatal crash involving a Xiaomi SUV7 (pictured above), which raised concerns about the technology's safety. Based on Xiaomi's report, the vehicle's driving assistance mode was switched on when the vehicle was approaching a construction zone, but the driver took control right before the SUV collided with a concrete barrier. The electric vehicle went up in flames, with the accident claiming three lives. Back in 2022, the California DMV accused Tesla of falsely portraying its vehicles as fully autonomous based on the language it used on its website, though that didn't lead to a ban on advertising terms. Chinese authorities announced the new rule at a meeting attended by 60 representatives from the automobile industry.

Of the many events that stand out as noteworthy in online discussions across Chinese social media in 2023, it's perhaps the rise of ChatGPT that will prove to be the most significant. Although the chatbot made by the US-based OpenAI was officially launched in late 2022, it took until 2023 for its unprecedented growth to raise eyebrows in China, where the government has set the goal of becoming the global AI leader by 2030. Over the past decade, the focus on AI in Chinese society and digital culture has grown. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, AI implementations in schools, office buildings and factories have rolled out in fast forward. AI facial recognition is employed in everything from public security to payment technology; smart glasses and helmets make it easier for many workers to perform their tasks; and intelligent robots have become a common sight in China's service industry, in malls, restaurants, and banks. There seemed little doubt over who would win the tech race between the eagle and the dragon; but then came ChatGPT.

China's top digital regulator proposed bold new guidelines this week that prohibit ChatGPT-style large language models from spitting out content believed to subvert state power or advocate for the overthrow of the country's communist political system. Experts speaking with Gizmodo said the new guidelines mark the clearest signs yet of Chinese authorities' eagerness to extend its hardline online censorship apparatus to the emerging world of generative artificial intelligence. "We should be under no illusions. The Party will wield the new Generative AI Guidelines to carry out the same function of censorship, surveillance, and information manipulation it has sought to justify under other laws and regulations," Michael Caster, Asia Digital Programme Manager for Article 19, a human rights organization focused on online free expression, told Gizmodo. The draft guidelines, published by the Cyberspace Administration of China, come hot on the heels of new generative AI products from Baidu, Alibaba, and other Chinese tech giants.

A whistleblower who exposed illegal working conditions in a factory making Amazon's Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese authorities. Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon's popular Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices. Now, after spending two years in prison, he is appealing to the higher courts to clear his name. He has taken the difficult decision to talk publicly, despite being aware of the risks of reprisals, because he believes Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have a responsibility to support his appeal and that the Observer also has a responsibility to highlight his case. Tang, who is married with a nine-year-old son, said his father – who died while he was in prison – would have wanted him to speak up when he saw young workers being abused.

It is undoubtedly the most modern quarantine center in the world. It's high-tech and highly advanced, says Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow in global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in an official statement. The quarantine center he's targeting is the Guangzhou International Health Center in south China's Guangdong Province. It is a giant complex of buildings that will welcome travelers from all over the world. Writes a total of 5,000 rooms ready soon to receive an increasing number of foreign tourists CNN.

Chinese authorities are tightening the reins on just how much online gaming companies are allowed to offer young users in an effort to curb video game addiction among children. Chinese authorities are tightening the reins on just how much online gaming companies are allowed to offer young users in an effort to curb video game addiction among children. It's getting dangerously close to "game over" for some players in China: If you're under 18 and a fan of video games, you're now limited to just three hours of play a week. In an effort to curb video game addiction among children, China's National Press and Publication Administration is tightening the reins on just how much online gaming companies are allowed to offer young users, the nation's news agency Xinhua reported Monday. Under the new mandates, companies are barred from offering their services to kids outside a small window of time: Those under 18 can access online games only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and only between 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to the report. Minors also are allowed to play during the same time on national holidays.

Smith Willas is a freelance writer, blogger, and digital media journalist. Chinese authorities are testing systems that use AI and facial recognition to detect emotional states. This is reported by the BBC with reference to an unnamed developer of this technology. Experts Boosty Labs, a company that focuses on smart contract development and blockchain app development, share their thoughts of this innovative trend's implications. Beijing is accused by many countries of the genocide of the Uyghur population. The Chinese authorities have flooded the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with surveillance cameras.

Satellite imaging has revealed hundreds of vessels from China fishing off the coast of North Korea, violating UN resolutions prohibiting such activity in the largest known case of vessels from one country operating unlawfully in another country's waters. More than 800 vessels were seen in 2019, say researchers at the non-profit Global Fishing Watch, who traced the boats to Chinese ports and waters. A similar number were seen in 2017 and 2018. They estimate that the vessels, about a third of China's long-range fishing fleet, caught more than 160,000 tonnes of flying squid, rivalling the Japanese and South Korean total. Stocks of the squid, the main commercially fished species in the area, have declined dramatically in recent years.

Chinese authorities may already be signaling there's a need to take a tougher stance on facial recognition technologies. Citing the case of Zao, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it's necessary to "strengthen the security assessment of new technologies and businesses" and guard against "network fraud and other hidden dangers," according to CNBC's translation of its statement on social media platform, WeChat. From a professional standpoint, it's impossible for face-swapping technology to pose a security threat to facial recognition payment, Zao said in an online statement Tuesday. If Zao sparks greater scrutiny on the security of facial recognition, Chinese authorities may tighten further in this area. China's delayed implementation of regulations -- intentional or not -- has helped some major technology companies flourish.

Though it's often talked about as if it's a single continuous structure, China's legendary Great Wall is actually a series of stone fortifications that crawl across the country's changing landscape from the Korean border to the Gobi desert. Thousands of miles long and more than 2,000 years old in some places, as much as 30 percent of the wall "lies crumbling into ruins" as it is slowly reclaimed by the natural world, according to National Geographic. To reach some of the most vulnerable sections of the ancient wall –– deteriorating portions that people have been completely cut off from or that remain too dangerous to traverse --Chinese authorities have deployed a new tool: drones. The drones have allowed Chinese authorities to map and measure sections of the wall, offering precise data that is already being used to rehabilitate a structure that is widely recognized as one of mankind's greatest feats of engineering, the BBC reported in a video published this week. Data collected by the drones has helped workers build support structures for vulnerable sections of the wall, the BBC reported.