Comments丨Establish rules for generative AI and promote the development of the digital economy

Xu Yujie (Chief Economist, Institute of Industrial Digital Economy, Shandong Industrial Technology Research Institute)

Recently, the Cyberspace Administration of China, together with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other seven departments, promulgated the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), covering technology development and governance, service standardization, supervision and inspection, and legal liability, a total of 24 articles in five chapters, clarifying the scope of application, main principles, specific measures to promote the healthy development and standardized application of generative AI services, the rights and obligations of generative AI service providers and generative AI service users. It is the first special legislation for generative AI in the world.

At the end of 2022, ChatGPT was born, and artificial intelligence achieved leapfrog development from decision-making to generative artificial intelligence, and aroused widespread attention to generative artificial intelligence. The significance of generative artificial intelligence for human society is a milestone, which changes the basic productivity tools, changes the production relations of society, and promotes a qualitative breakthrough in the entire social productivity, which has a wide range of application prospects and development potential, and has irreplaceable value for the future human society. Global consulting giant McKinsey released a report pointing out that if generative artificial intelligence is applied to various industries, it will bring $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in annual growth to the global economy. What is this concept? In layman's terms, generative AI could contribute "one UK GDP" to the global economy each year, as the UK's GDP in 2021 totaled $3.1 trillion. There is no doubt that generative AI is leading a new wave of productivity, creating great value for the global economy and making substantial contributions to economic growth and sustainable development.

From the birth of ChatGPT to the introduction of the Measures, it only took more than half a year, which shows that the rapid development and momentum of generative artificial intelligence have had a profound and transformative impact on human society. On the other hand, it shows that the country pays great attention to the development of emerging digital technologies represented by generative artificial intelligence, actively embraces new opportunities in digital technology, grasps the new pulse of the development of digital economy, and strives to push China's economy to a new stage of high-quality development. Combined with the content of the Measures, the author believes that:

First, it shows the country's encouragement and support for the development of generative artificial intelligence. First of all, the Measures clearly point out that "effective measures are taken to encourage the innovative development of generative artificial intelligence", "innovative application of generative artificial intelligence technology in various industries and fields", "independent innovation of basic technologies such as generative artificial intelligence algorithms, frameworks, chips and supporting software platforms is encouraged", from the underlying basic technology innovation to the application innovation of the upper industry, effectively demonstrating the state's firm attitude of supporting the development of generative artificial intelligence; Second, the Draft requires that before using generative AI products to provide services to the public, a security assessment should be declared and relevant filing procedures should be performed, while in the final Measures, only "providing generative AI services with public opinion attributes or social mobilization capabilities" are required for security assessment and filing. The scope of strong supervision has been reduced, unnecessary intervention has been reduced, and the vast majority of generative AI services have a more free and open space for development and application, which is a clear attitude of the state to encourage and support generative AI.

Second, safe and healthy development is the key principle of the generative artificial intelligence industry. For generative artificial intelligence, the state adheres to the principle of attaching equal importance to development and security. In today's world, the game of great powers is becoming increasingly fierce, and digital technology has become a key factor in changing the global economic pattern, interest pattern and competition pattern. The development and security of digital technology are like two wings of the same body and two wheels of driving, and the two complement each other and are interdependent. In this context, the Measures propose to "use secure and trustworthy chips, software, tools, computing power and data resources", "provide secure, stable and continuous services", and "provide generative AI services with public opinion attributes or social mobilization capabilities, shall carry out security assessments in accordance with relevant national regulations" to escort the development of generative AI. Generative AI is a double-edged sword, bringing new opportunities to human society, but also creating many new problems, such as infringement of personal information, dissemination of false information and prejudice discrimination. Therefore, the Measures require that "respect the lawful rights and interests of others, must not endanger the physical and mental health of others, and must not infringe on the privacy and personal information rights and interests of others", "shall perform protection obligations for users' input information and use records in accordance with law, and must not collect unnecessary personal information", "generate positive, healthy, and upwardly good-looking high-quality content", "take effective measures to prevent the generation of ethnicity, belief, country, region, gender, age, occupation, in the process of algorithm design, training data selection, model generation and optimization, and providing services. health and other discrimination". The Measures guide generative artificial intelligence to healthy development and standardized application from multiple aspects and perspectives.

Third, the importance of data as a new factor of production has become increasingly prominent. In the new era of digital "intelligence", data has become the most characteristic production factor of the times, a basic and strategic resource, and the core engine for the deepening development of the digital economy. The future development of artificial intelligence mainly depends on the three elements of data, computing power and algorithms, of which data is the primary factor, without data, no matter how efficient computing power and accurate algorithms are meaningless. Therefore, "data" is one of the words that appears most frequently in the full text of the Measures, with a total of 18 mentions in the full text, involving data selection, data source, data quality, data labeling, data classification and grading, data resource platform construction, digital security, etc. Specifically, data selection to prevent discrimination, data sources should be safe and credible, promote the construction of public training data resource platforms, promote the orderly opening of public data classification, grading, and grading, improve the quality of training data, enhance the authenticity, accuracy, objectivity, and diversity of training data, formulate clear, specific, and operable labeling rules, and carry out data labeling quality assessments. It can be seen that the Measures strive to make full and reasonable use of data elements in the process of generative artificial intelligence development, and help generative artificial intelligence move farther and deeper.

(Zhao Mingchen, researcher at the Institute of Industrial Digital Economy, Shandong Industrial Technology Research Institute, also contributed to this article)

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