OpenAI, which Elon Musk helped to co-found back in 2015, is the San Francisco-based startup that created ChatGPT. The company opened ChatGPT up for public testing in November 2022. In under a week, the artificial intelligence model amassed over a million users, according to OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. By the end of January, ChatGPT was averaging about 13 million visitors per day. Users have had ChatGPT write everything from essays, to lyrics and even correct computer code. ChatGPT is part of a growing field of AI known as generative AI, which allows users to create brand new content including videos, music and text. But generative AI still faces a number of challenges, such as developing content that is inaccurate, biased or inappropriate. Now enterprises and the public are wondering what wide access to AI will mean for businesses and society.
Chapters:
00:00 — Intro
01:36 — Chatting with ChatGPT
03:03 — Understanding ChatGPT
06:39 — Use cases and limitations
10:09 — Future implications
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Driving innovation: Nigerian artist Malik Afegbua creates hyper-realistic pictures of African people using artificial intelligence at his home in Lagos. China leads the world in this technology, as well as in the number of AI journals and related publications. — Reuters
SHANGHAI: Chinese tech companies are upping the ante in the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content sector as ChatGPT, the latest chatbot launched by US-based artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, gains wide popularity since its November debut and revolutionises the field due to its advanced conversational capabilities.
Leveraging machine learning algorithms, ChatGPT is able to mimic humanlike responses with AI-generated content (AIGC) and assist people with tasks such as writing essays and scripts, making business proposals and even checking programme bugs, which it does within seconds.
AIGC-related stocks continued to rally in the A-share market, with Chinese AI companies, such as Cloudwalk Technology and Speechocean, seeing their shares surge by the daily limit of 20% on the science and technology innovation board on Monday.
Experts said that AIGC is likely to become a new engine driving innovation in digital content production and freeing human creators from tedious tasks, with a wide range of commercial applications in fields such as culture, media, entertainment and education.
Chinese tech heavyweight Baidu Inc announced yesterday that it will complete internal testing of its AI chatbot service, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, called “Ernie Bot” in March.
The Beijing-based company has invested large sums of money in developing its Ernie system, a large-scale machine-learning model that has been trained on massive data over several years and possesses in-depth semantic comprehension and generation capabilities.
Robin Li, co-founder and chief executive officer of Baidu, said in January that AIGC will subvert existing content production models in the next decade, and AI has the potential to meet massive demand for content at a 10th of the cost and a hundred or thousand times faster.
Jianying, an AI-powered short-video editing app launched by Chinese tech company Byte-Dance, allows users to generate creative videos by simply putting in a few keywords or a paragraph of text.
Online gaming company Net-Ease has released its AI music creation platform, Tianyin, where users can customise a song by entering lyrics.
Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Centre at Zhejiang University’s International Business School, said that ChatGPT, as a milestone in AIGC-related technologies, uses reinforcement learning from human feedback to train the data model, with significant enhancements in natural language processing capacities that improve the logic of responses.
Chinese enterprises should step up efforts to roll out indigenous versions of the AI-powered chatbot and increase investments to improve related algorithms and computing power, Pan said.
Chen Jia, an independent strategy analyst, said: “Chinese tech enterprises have unique advantages in expanding AI application scenarios globally.”
China has made significant progress in developing the AI industry.
A Stanford University report showed that China filed more than half the world’s AI patent applications in 2021 and continued to lead the world in the number of AI journals, conference papers and related publications.
Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba have invested heavily in promoting the commercial use of AI, and some Chinese AI unicorns have grown rapidly in recent years, Chen said.
But he noted that Chinese tech companies lag behind top-notch foreign competitors in fundamental research and development input and comprehensive innovation abilities.
“AIGC is in the initial stage of development, and there is still a long way to go to realise large-scale commercialisation, as the application scenarios and related laws and regulations are far from mature,” said Guo Tao, deputy head of the China Electronic Commerce Expert Service Centre.
Meanwhile, the use of AIGC-related technologies raises concerns about ethics, copyright protection and privacy, he added.— China Daily/ANN
Though it takes a long time to develop a brand in foreign markets,
Chinese companies are good at research and development, meaning products
can quickly be technology-driven and meet local needs
- Fang Han,
From the world's top short video application TikTok to the biggest fast-fashion app Shein and emerging music-video app StarMaker, a rising number of mobile apps developed by Chinese companies are influencing people's daily lives across the globe.
A new report published by market consultancy iResearch showed that the overseas revenue of China's entertainment apps grew 204 per cent year-on-year in 2021.
In addition, a report from US search giant Google said that the downloads of apps made by Chinese developers among the world's top 1,000 applications nearly doubled over the past decade, from 8 per cent to 14 per cent.
Industry experts said this demonstrated Chinese companies' strong innovative capabilities, but they also face challenges amid rising geopolitical tensions.
"Chinese companies are playing a bigger role in global mobile app innovation, thanks to the rapid development of the digital economy. The momentum of digital consumption and 5G commercialisation promoted the continuous innovation and iterative upgrading of digital technologies, thus driving the huge innovative vitality of app developers," said Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.
"The Chinese government has also been making great efforts in driving digital innovation and encouraging companies to deeply integrate digital technologies with the real economy," Wang added.
Wang also said that such efforts have led to the development of a group of industry leaders that are able to leverage their innovative ability to contribute to global industrial development.
The iResearch report noted that Chinese gaming apps continued to be the major revenue driver of the nation's apps overseas, but social networking apps have also displayed growth momentum over the past year.
The United States, Japan and South Korea were the main overseas sources of income for Chinese apps.
Notably, downloads of Chinese apps also increased in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia last year, among which the African market was the most prominent, with a total growth rate of 18.9 per cent year-on-year. StarMaker, a karaoke video app enabling users to create and share music videos, quickly went viral in 102 countries and regions, where it has become one of the best-selling music apps.
"The global market is promising for Chinese companies.
'Though it takes a long time to develop a brand in foreign markets, Chinese companies are good at research and development, meaning products can quickly be technology-driven and meet local needs," said Fang Han, CEO of Kunlun, the developer of StarMaker.
"After success in one market, we are also able to quickly spread this to other countries," Fang said, adding that the company has a dominant position in markets in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Small developers from China are also warming up the global mobile app market. US tech company Apple Inc said that more than 5 million third-party developers in its iOS app ecosystem are from China, up from 4.4 million a year ago, and they have increasingly become a major force in the global app economy.
However, Huang Leping, head of technology, media and telecommunications at Huatai Securities, said that many challenges remain for Chinese companies in going global, especially as many countries have tightened up their data protection policies.
"In the past, companies have been able to build a set of algorithms in China and offer services in foreign markets, where the data can be interconnected.
'But in the future, companies may need to build supporting facilities in various countries to do that, which will greatly increase their operating costs and risks," Huang said.- China Daily/Ann
Too obsessed with James Bond movie! Spokesperson slashes UK MI5's report of China agent
`
MI5 recently issued a warning to MPs, claiming Christine Lee, a woman of Chinese origin, has been working as a spy on behalf of the Communist Party of China with the aim to infiltrate Parliament to interfere in UK politics. Some MPs immediately followed suit to hype the "China threat." MP Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said "the challenge from Beijing is increasing." Meanwhile, Conservative MP and former party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, called for Ms Lee to be deported and demanded the government make a statement to the House.
`
MI6 is famous around the world because of the James Bond films. MI5 is a brother department of MI6. Ken McCallum, the current director general of MI5, was given the nickname "007" by his teammates before he took office in April 2020. In his annual threat update for 2021, he warned that the activities of China, Russia and other "hostile states" could have as large an impact on the public as terrorism. This is just the epitome of how deeply he is poisoned by McCarthyism.
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MI5 is not satisfied with some general remarks, and has made up a real-life 007 script. But in this fiction, almost all the accusations against Ms Lee come from nowhere. It can only use the lobbyist activities that are widely accepted in the West as "concrete evidence." Even Home Secretary Priti Patel said stronger laws were needed since Ms Lee's activity was "under the criminal threshold." However, the British Parliament has launched smear campaign against Ms Lee. It is a shame for the British rule of law to judge before trial.
`
Maybe those MPs are also fans of James Bond films. They cannot wait to tell the sensational story after MI5 made a script, in disregard of what the truth is. Perhaps Duncan Smith subconsciously thought Ms Lee is Chinese and so he called for deporting her. However, Ms Lee is a British national and founder of a law firm with offices in London.
`
It is worth mentioning that Ms Lee was honored as one of No 10's "Points of Light" by former British prime minister Theresa May for her work to promote interactions between Chinese communities and other communities in the country. By MI5's standards, an employee of Western government or company working in China could be a suspicious spy if he or she treats a Chinese friend to a meal, and many Westerners in China would thus be defined as "agents" or "proxies."
`
In this farce starring MI5 and some MPs, any person with a Chinese-like face is suspicious who may be up to something bad against Britain. They repeatedly targeting the ethnic minorities, which is essentially a racial discrimination stemming from the mentality that "those who are not of our kind have different hearts." The box office of such a film with a preset standpoint and far-fetched narrative will be a disaster. However, this will inevitably have a negative impact on society when it is widely spread by the British media.
`
The individuals, companies and organizations that are devoted to promoting China-UK friendship and cooperation will be the first victims. Taking down Ms Lee will intimidate others who are rational on China-UK relations. Anti-China politicians will have more space to maneuver - and they don't care if such moves will harm Britain's own interests. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in hate crimes against Asians in the UK, which is also a manifestation of the negative consequences of anti-China sentiment.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday that China hopes that relevant British officials will refrain from making groundless remarks, let alone hyping the "China threat theory" for ulterior political purposes. China has no need to interfere in the UK, and China will not do so. The cooperation between China and the UK in many areas in the past few years is a natural result of the two countries' common interests. It is not by buying off one or two members of parliament. Isn't it a humiliation to their national status and power to fabricate the logic that China can interfere in UK politics by buying off MPs?
`
In the past two years, MI5 has come to resemble the CIA. It serves more of Washington's strategic needs while doesn't even care taking Britain into the trenches. Britain has always said it has an "independent diplomacy." Now is the time to test that
‘Tainted’ stars: The authorities in Hangzhou slapped fines on top livestreamers, Cherie and Lin Shanshan, for misreporting personal income as business income to evade taxes. — China Daily/ANN
WHAT kind of person is best suited to become an idol who can inject positive energy into the youth of China?
Certainly not the 88 people who have been placed on the livestreaming ban list.
Chinese authorities have turned their attention to the fan culture prevalent in the country. On Nov 24, the China Association of Performing Arts introduced a list of 88 people who are banned from livestreaming. The list includes Guo Laoshi, who was known for her crude sense of humour, and tainted stars such as Kris Wu and Zhang Zhehan.
The measures were necessary after the entertainment stars were found mired in scandals ranging from sexual assault to tax evasion.
The authorities in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, had also slapped fines worth US$14.6mil (RM59.2mil) on two top livestreamers, Cherie and Lin Shanshan, for misreporting personal income as business income to evade taxes – tactics similar to those employed by actresses Fan Bingbing and Zheng Shuang.
Such regulatory action will serve society well. People who want to become stars must first of all behave themselves. In the past, some stars have let their fans down when their misdemeanours were exposed and their image came crashing down.
Kris Wu is one of the banned 88.Kris Wu is one of the banned 88.
Sometimes “chaotic” fan behaviour has led to conflicts between young fans and their parents.
On Chinese social networking sites, fan groups are often referred to as fanquan, or “fan circles”. The fans are mostly believed to belong to Generation Z, being born after 1995, and their numbers have grown significantly in recent years.
However, gone are the days when celebrities served as role models to exemplify what hard work could accomplish. These days fanquan knows no limits. Fans go to any extent in order to blindly support tainted entertainment stars. They waste their time, and even money, for their stars and frequently engage in verbally abusing fans of their stars’ rivals.
There have even been reports of teenage fans stealing their parents’ money and credit cards to buy products endorsed by their idols.
Therefore, it was high time the authorities to ensure the healthy development of fan culture among the young. Teenagers, whose minds are still immature, make up a bulk of such fan circles. Such toxic fan culture can play a negative role on the development of adolescent minds. Also, doing away with such fanquan is necessary for creating a healthy competitive environment in the entertainment industry.
Entertainment stars and their agencies should shoulder some social responsibilities to ensure the fans know how to behave and abide by social rules. — China Daily/ANN
British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth Photo:VCG
I watched the new James Bond movie last night. It is well made. But the more I watched, the more it looked like comedy. In one scene when they are about to destroy a chemical manufacturing facility located on a disputed island between Russia and Japan, the MI6 official asks whether there are any Royal Navy warships nearby. It turns out there are, and then the missile is launched. Are the British sleepwalking? The Royal Navy is now relying heavily on the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, which has been leaking frequently, to scrape a battle group up. Yet HMS Queen Elizabeth did come to show in the Asia Pacific region recently. But if it is exploited as the basis for the story, it would be too embarrassing.
The UK is a declining empire. The novel coronavirus epidemic has gravely devastated the country, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Many residents of other countries are afraid of taking the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine produced by the UK. In the Taiwan island alone, hundreds of people died after receiving the vaccine. Ironically, this James Bond movie is about preventing biological weapons.
The British are really good at this. Although the country is in decline, it is still high-spirited. In the newly filmed 007 movie, the empire seems to be in full swing. But I believe that the Western blockbusters in which characters attempt to save the human race will gradually become ridiculous over time, as these blockbusters will lose the public's psychological foundation due to the relative decline in strengths of Western countries and the continuous disintegration of self-confidence.
In the movie, the disputed islands between Russia and Japan, which should be controlled by Russia, were bombed. If the UK dared to do this in reality, Russia wouldn't waste a minute to respond with hardline measures. A few months ago after Moscow said a patrol ship fired warning shots against British vessels, London declined that any warning shot had been fired.
But I have to praise James Bond movies. They never mess with China. Instead, they are friendly to China. Even when the ties between China and Britain is getting worse, some villains in the movie still "speak Russian." This is because the Chinese film market is huge. In a commercial promoting the James Bond movie, Daniel Craig said "Thank you" in Chinese, showing his appreciation. Chinese consumption power is the strength.
The Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, which ended on Tuesday this year, have witnessed a tendency that this traditional Chinese festival was celebrated by galas that focused on sending out positive energy and inviting competent singers, rather than wasting money on idols in a bid for ratings.
One of the most-anticipated galas was the Mid-Autumn Festival Concert in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) 2021, jointly held by the Bauhinia Culture Holdings Limited and China Central Television in Shenzhen,South China's Guangdong Province,on Tuesday night.
Featuring some 200 top singers from the Chinese mainland, the island of Taiwan and the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, such as Jackie Chan, Wang Fei and TFBOYS, the gala was anticipated by many Chinese audience as a rare gathering of top musicians from across the country, given the tough period of the COVID-19 epidemic.
"In my eyes, apart from showing the development of the GBA, the highlight of the gala was the gathering of stars from the mainland, Taiwan island, Hong Kong and Macao. Among those, I most looked forward to their chorus of the songs Pearl of the Orient and Country," Lin Yumei, 26, a lawyer from Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, told the Global Times.
On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong officially returned to the motherland. That night, Hong Kong hosted its largest-ever "TV karaoke," with millions of Hong Kong residents singing along to Pearl of the Orient while it played simultaneously on TV.
"Although I was only 2 years old at the time and don't have many memories of the momentous occasion, I grew up listening to my parents and teachers describe the exhilaration of that time. Today I can finally enjoy and witness a great cast perform this significant song once again," she added.
Lin noted that Country is a song dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the original intention of the creation was to reflect on the fate of China and its people standing together after the earthquake, snow disaster and hosting of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
"These songs with strong positive energy, and performed by representative stars from all over the country, are bound to resonate with the feelings of family and country, and the homesickness of our compatriots in different places," Lin said.
The gala was held as some in Hong Kong were being reported to have helped incite violence in the 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in the city, such as Anthony Wong Yiu-ming.
It also followed recent controversies involving some Taiwan entertainers, for example female host Dee Hsu and singer Jolin Tsai, over their political stances.
It was viewed as a great opportunity to enhance cohesion and convey patriotism amid the controversies.
Five middle-aged entertainers who recently rebranded themselves as the boy band GBA on the latest episode of the variety show Call Me by Fire, were also scheduled to attend the gala.
The five members of GBA, which include 54-year-old Jordan Chan and 49-year-old Julian Cheung, aroused Chinese netizens' nostalgia for the heydays of the Hong Kong entertainment industry.
Besides the GBA gala, galas held by the Henan provincial TV station and the Bilibili website also attracted much attention.
While galas held by Chinese online platforms and TV stations used to be luxury events that involved heavy spending for popular idols to ensure high audience ratings, these galas focused on restoring traditional Chinese programs and scenes of how people celebrated the festival in ancient times.
Under the "Clear and Bright" campaign led by the relevant departments, those in the Chinese entertainment industry who received invitations to perform at the Mid-Autumn Festival Gala this year were mainly powerful singers and actors with representative works.
There were fewer idols with huge fan bases, and the concept behind the galas was also more exquisite, no longer simply competing with the popularity of the artists, but emphasizing themes and presentation, a senior entertainment industry insider surnamed Sun told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Sun noted that this year's show also brought more attention to truly talented but relatively unknown artists, and allowed the audiences to enjoy a higher level of performance.
"The performance of the galas highlighted family sentiment and traditional Chinese culture. There was less controversy among netizens on social platforms, and the discussion of the Mid-Autumn Festival Galas was more focused on the festival and the performances.
"This is a pleasing phenomenon for the entire entertainment industry," Sun said.
A group of gamers wearing VR headsets at Zero
Latency Singapore. The VR arcade in Singapore is the latest to pop up
around the world as backers of the technology seek to shake off teething
problems and break into the mainstream. — AFP
Arcades seek to take virtual reality gaming mainstream
SINGAPORE: Gamers wearing headsets and wielding rifles adorned with flashing lights battle a horde of zombies, letting out the occasional terrified shriek.
The virtual reality arcade in Singapore is part of a wave of such venues being opened as backers of the technology seek to shake off teething problems and break into the mainstream.
The buzz around virtual reality (VR) gaming has seen Taiwan-based HTC, Sony and Facebook-owned Oculus VR battling to woo consumers with a range of headgear.
But it has been slow to really take off, partly due to the hefty price of top-end headsets, beginning at around US$350 (RM1,362), and the challenges in setting up complex VR systems at home.
But VR arcades, which have been springing up around the world, particularly in Asia, are now giving people the chance to try it out more easily and for a fraction of the price.
“Given the complications of at-home, PC-based VR systems, pay-per-use, location-based entertainment venues can fill the gap,” said Bryan Ma, from International Data Corporation (IDC), a consumer technology market research firm, in a recent note on the industry.
Several VR gaming companies have made forays into Singapore, seeing the ultra-modern, affluent city-state that is home to hordes of expatriates as a good fit.
The zombie fight-out was taking place at a centre where participants stalked a room with a black floor and walls.
“I did paintball before, it’s quite fun... but I think the whole scene is much more interesting here,” said Jack Backx, a 55-year-old from the Netherlands, who was playing with colleagues from the oil and gas industry on a work day out.
The location is run by VR gaming group Zero Latency, which started in Australia and has expanded to nine countries. It uses “free-roam” virtual reality – where gamers move around in large spaces and are not tethered to computers with cables.
It’s not all intense, shoot-’em-ups – VR group Virtual Room has an outlet in Singapore that transports gamers to scenarios in the prehistoric period, a medieval castle, ancient Egypt and even a lunar landing.
Asia leads the way
VR arcades have been springing up in other places. China was an early hotbed for virtual reality gaming although the industry has struggled in recent times, while they can also be found in countries across the region including Japan, Taiwan and Australia.
Many key industry milestones over the past two years have been in Asia but arcades have appeared elsewhere – London’s first one opened last year while there are also some in the United States.
Consumer spending on virtual reality hardware, software and services is expected to more than double from US$2.2bil (RM8.56bil) in 2017, to US$4.5bil (RM17.51bil) this year, according to gaming intelligence provider SuperData Research.
For the best-quality experience, it can be relatively expensive – a session in Singapore costs Sg$59 (RM175).
“The equipment here is not cheap,” said Simon Ogilvie, executive director of Tomorrow Entertainment, which runs the Zero Latency franchise in Singapore.
The industry faces huge challenges.
China offers a cautionary tale – according to IDC, VR arcades have struggled there after expanding too quickly.
There have also been warnings that improvements in home-based technology may eventually lead to VR gaming centres suffering the same fate as traditional arcades that were once filled with Pac-Man and Street Fighter machines.
“The rise and fall of coin-operated videogame arcades in the 1980s suggests that such VR arcades may eventually fade in relevance as home-based computing power and prices fall within mass consumer reach,” said the note from IDC’s Ma.
Rebecca Assice, who runs Virtual Room in Singapore, said one challenge was getting people interested in the first place as many still did not know about the arcades.
“VR is still a really new industry,” she said. “A lot of people just don’t know this sort of activity exists.” — AFP
