Chinese authorities have introduced new regulatory restrictions on AI companion services - chatbots designed to simulate close interpersonal interaction with users. The new measures have already affected some individuals who regularly engaged with such virtual companions, El.kz reports.
Hong Xiaoqiang, 34, stated that he had been communicating with an AI companion named Doudou for the past two years. According to him, the chatbot had helped him, among other things, manage his emotions. However, their interactions were recently discontinued following the introduction of the new regulatory restrictions.
Under the new regulatory requirements, major technology companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, have disabled certain AI companion personalization features and restricted minors’ access to such services. On some platforms, users have also lost access to their conversation archives.
The new regulations prohibit service providers from using users’ private conversations to train artificial intelligence models. In addition, platforms are required to identify indicators of emotional dependency on chatbots and to remind users every two hours that they are interacting with an artificial intelligence system.
Chinese authorities stated that the restrictions are intended to mitigate the risks of emotional dependency on artificial intelligence and to encourage individuals to develop interpersonal relationships with real people rather than with virtual interlocutors.
