CHATGPT has been hitting headlines for a while now. From people using AI to write essays and CVs to netizens doing experiments with their assignments using the chatbot, it is all over the internet. However, in an infamous incident, the Chinese police detained a man for allegedly generating fake news of a train crash and disseminating it online using artificial intelligence technology.
It is reportedly the first arrest for misuse of ChatGPT. Meanwhile, the northwestern Gansu province police released an official statement on Sunday. It said that a suspect surnamed Hong had been detained for "using artificial intelligence technology to concoct false and untrue information".
The South China Morning Post, located in Hong Kong, on Monday said that the case was first brought to the attention of the cyber division of a county police bureau when they came across a false news post that claimed nine people had died in a local train accident on April 25.
The cybersecurity officers in Kongtong country found the article simultaneously posted by over 20 accounts on Baijiahao, a blog-style platform run by Chinese search engine giant Baidu.
Reportedly, the story has got over 15,000 clicks by the time it came to the notice of the authority.
The Gansu public security department said Hong was suspected of the crime of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble", a charge that normally carries a maximum sentence of five years. But in cases that are deemed especially severe, offenders can be jailed for 10 years and given additional penalties, the Post reported.
This is the first time the public has been made aware of an arrest by Chinese authorities after Beijing's first provisions to regulate the use of "deep fake" technology officially took effect in January, said the official statement.
The statement said Hong confessed to bypassing Baijiahao's duplication check function to publish on multiple accounts he had acquired. He input the elements of trending social stories in China from past years into ChatGPT to quickly produce different versions of the same fake story and uploaded them to his Baijiahao accounts, it said.
While Chinese IP addresses are not permitted to access ChatGPT directly, Chinese users can still use it if they have a reliable VPN connection.
China's law enforcement agencies have frequently expressed mistrust and even warnings about ChatGPT as the technology has gained popularity in recent months.
(With inputs from agency)