AI crackdown: China stamps out tech misuse to preserve national literature and ideology

Beijing is stepping up its defence of classic literature against AI misuse that it says could undermine and endanger China’s leading ideology.

The Chinese government says AI’s “peculiar adaptations” from classic television dramas based on Chinese literature are “highly deceptive”. Like memes, these edited video clips are made largely for laughs and social media traction, and highlight Beijing’s challenges in regulating artificial intelligence.

The National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the agency that oversees state broadcasting, last week issued a notice calling on its supervisory bodies to clean up videos that use AI to create jokes derived from Chinese cultural touchstones.

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It said there was an increasing trend of altering video clips from television shows based on novels hailed as the greatest works of Chinese literature, including Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West.

The broadcast watchdog said these AI-remastered jokes “seek to gain traffic without boundaries and disrespect classic intellectual properties”.

It added that they “challenge traditional cultural perceptions, go against the core spirit of the original works and may constitute copyright infringement”.

The AI-remastered videos, which are largely characterised by a humorous or sarcastic tone, can still be found on Chinese social media platforms, with some clearly labelled as generated by AI while others are not.