Hong Kong trials local bespoke ChatGPT alternative

A Hong Kong government unit is piloting a bespoke AI chatbot assistant program which is set to be rolled out across all departments later this year.

If all goes to plan, the service will eventually be made available to the public as long as it passes initial tests as revealed by Sun Dong, the Secretary for Innovation, Technology, and Industry. His office is the first to work with the program, which was referred to as the “document editing co-pilot application for civil servants”.

By utilizing the service, staff will be aided when drafting, translating, and summarizing documents with the potential to improve efficiency. The program has been developed using generative AI research, led by Hong Kong University in partnership with other academic institutions.

Graphics and video design are envisaged for the future, but an exact comparison to the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT is not possible due to a lack of published information.

In this region, China’s realm (including Hong Kong and Macau) is effectively blacklisted from using OpenAI’s tech as they are not on the list of “supported countries and territories”. With no scope for the US and Western-backed tech giants to evolve in these areas, the onus is on government departments and associated research centers to come up with their own solutions.

That is the outcome in Hong Kong, where the aim is for the locally developed AI program to give better ‘micro’ coverage, especially around issues of local language and idiosyncrasies. There will also be a responsibility for the final product to be “politically correct.”

“Given Hong Kong’s current situation, it’s difficult for Hong Kong to get giant companies like Microsoft and Google to subsidize such projects, so the government had to start doing it,” stated Sun.

In the race to develop AI to the scale and capability of the likes of ChatGPT, Francis Fong, the honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation gave a realistic but guarded response. He acknowledged how it would be difficult to initially match OpenAI but stressed that the Hong Kong project will aim to reach those standards. 

He added, “Will it become the top? Maybe not necessarily as close as that. But I believe it won’t be too far behind.”

China and the U.S. are known to be fierce geopolitical rivals, with Beijing aiming to be the leading global force in AI by 2030. Although OpenAI is banned within its jurisdiction, conscientious internet users can still access its services in some cases through the use of VPNs. Any public or commercial AI projects must gain the approval of the administration, highlighting the ideological differences of the competing forces.

That is reinforced following reports earlier this year that an AI chatbot is in development, trained on the doctrine of President Xi Jinping.

Image credit: Via Ideogram

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