The Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Sun Dong, said on Friday that the government has a “very open attitude” towards the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology but currently has no plans of adopting the new ChatGPT chatbot. His remarks were made while attending a digital economy summit.
The Chinese Cyberspace Administration recently proposed new regulations that apply to the technology and applications related to generative AI, with the focus on ensuring that their generated content reflects socialist values and does not subvert national power. Sun Dong noted that the SAR government is closely monitoring related developments in the field.
He further stated that the government is dedicated to collaborating with different industries to promote generative AI in Hong Kong, in order to “push relevant technologies to new heights”. At the same time, Sun Dong said the administration will not use ChatGPT for now. This is because OpenAI, which is the company behind the technology of ChatGPT, has not yet officially given the green light for its use in the region. Additionally, there may be some information security risks involved, so at present the government does not intend to include it in internally used applications.
Sun had previously announced plans to create a task force in order to examine the challenges that may arise from ChatGPT. It seems like these challenges remain unexplored due to the lack of permission from OpenAI.
OpenAI is a research laboratory based in San Francisco, California which is focused on developing artificial general intelligence. It was founded in December 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman (the current CTO), and Ilya Sutskever (the present Chief Scientist). OpenAI incentivizes world-class researchers and engineers to develop state-of-the-art AI technologies, aiming towards a greater safety of artificial intelligence that is accessible to the public.
Sun Dong is the current Secretary for Innovation and Technology in Hong Kong. Before his appointment, he had worked as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of China Mobile Hong Kong for 13 years. He started his career as an Electronic Engineer at IBM and then as Vice President of Oracle Hongkong. Sun Dong has been actively engaged in promoting digital transformation in the retail, banking and telecommunications sectors. He received an honorary doctorate from the Open University of Hong Kong in 2018 for his contribution to the industry.
