At the end of September, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology presented its new guidelines in the form of “Ethical Specifications of Next-Generation Artificial Intelligence”. China’s stated goal is to integrate more ethics into the entire AI life cycle and thus provide relevant individuals, legal entities and institutions engaged in AI-related activities with ethical guidance.

The Code of Ethics published by China, and available on the website of the Ministry of Science and Technology, highlights 6 main ethical requirements including improving human welfare, promoting fairness and justice, protecting privacy and security, ensuring controllable credibility, or enhancing responsibility and improving ethical literacy. At the same time, 18 additional ethical requirements for specific activities such as AI management, research and development, procurement and use have been defined.

Often criticized for its authoritarian approach, China is strengthening its regulation, especially regarding the collection and use of personal data with its recent regulation for the protection of data on the Internet.

Issues of internal security, social order and economic order are at the centre of Chinese concerns and, with its new guidelines focused on ethics, the country is calling for the regulation of AI algorithms that could pose a threat or influence public opinion. Its giants like Alibaba or even Didi have already been targeted by the authorities. Chinese companies are strongly encouraged to improve the transparency of their algorithms in order to explain them to their customers, especially in the case of recommendation tools, to respect the possible refusals of consumers, etc. Administrations, on the other hand, are not subject to the same imperatives regarding the use of data.

Translated from La Chine présente ses « spécifications éthiques de l’intelligence artificielle de nouvelle génération »