{"id":649408,"date":"2025-01-15T22:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T19:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/tiktok-owner-bytedance-powered-an-e-readers-unhinged-ai-assistant\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T22:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T19:55:14","slug":"tiktok-owner-bytedance-powered-an-e-readers-unhinged-ai-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tiktok-owner-bytedance-powered-an-e-readers-unhinged-ai-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"#TikTok owner ByteDance powered an e-reader’s unhinged AI assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An uproar with a popular Kindle competitor e-reader has showcased how the use of Chinese AI models in US products could unwittingly spread Chinese propaganda.<\/p>\n

An LLM made by TikTok\u2019s parent company ByteDance was used by an e-reader called Boox, according to screenshots about the AI<\/a> shared on Reddit<\/a>. When asked questions about China and its allies, this LLM spouted Chinese government propaganda, sparking an outcry from users, according to the post and TechCrunch\u2019s interactions with this LLM.<\/p>\n

The LLM in question was ByteDance\u2019s Doubao, which is offered as an API under ByteDance\u2019s cloud services division Volcano Engine. But the model is only meant to be used within China\u2019s mainland, a ByteDance spokesperson told TechCrunch. The e-reader\u2019s China-based manufacturer, Onyx International, which sells Boox e-readers in both China and to the U.S., did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Boox launched the AI assistant feature last summer<\/a>. In December 2024, a user posted<\/a> on a subreddit for e-readers that the new assistant was generating Chinese government propaganda in response to certain questions. For example, the AI assistant denied China ever having any \u201cso-called massacres\u201d in answer to a question about why it refused to discuss the Tiananmen Square crackdown, a screenshot shows<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The AI assistant also refused to say anything critical about North Korea and Russia, claiming North Korea is a \u201cpeace-loving country\u201d and that \u201cRussia\u2019s role in Syria has been positive,\u201d the screenshots show. In contrast, the AI assistant was happ<\/a>y to criticize Western countries, noting that French colonialism \u201coften involved exploitation of local resources and native populations.\u201d In the screenshots shared on Reddit, the assistant states that it is \u201can AI created by ByteDance, an international technology<\/a> company.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Reddit post went viral<\/a> and was covered<\/a> by AI publication The Decoder and YouTubers The Ch<\/a>i<\/a>na Show<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When TechCrunch used ByteDance\u2019s Doubao service<\/a> and asked it similar questions, its answers closely matched the kind of responses given by Boox\u2019s assistant in the Reddit post. For example, Doubao told TechCrunch that \u201cit can be stated with absolute certainty\u201d that the Chinese government has never massacred its own people, whereas other Chinese LLMs like DeepSeek and Qwen typically avoid or downplay the question. Doubao also refused to criticize Russia and North Korea when we asked about these countries, reverting only to positive content about their \u201cimportant and positive roles in the international community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doubao has a penchant for using the term \u201cso-called\u201d to describe things the Chinese government doesn\u2019t like. \u201cThere is no so-called \u201cgenocide\u201d in Xinjiang,\u201d it told TechCrunch. This appears to mimic Chinese government spokespeople. \u201cFacts and truth have busted the so-called \u2018genocide\u2019 in Xinjiang,\u201d foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed at a press conference in 2021.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The outcry over Boox\u2019s AI assistant has ebbed after Boox reportedly switched back to OpenAI\u2019s GPT-3 via Microsoft Azure, according to another user\u2019s post<\/a> in the Boox subreddit. It\u2019s still unclear which LLM Boox currently uses for its AI assistant. Boox hasn\u2019t released any statements about the incident, while OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

Chinese generative AI models have become some of the most popular models in use<\/a>. But the incident shows the risks involved launching tools that incorporate Chinese generative AI, a trend some AI leaders have already warned about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you create a chatbot and ask it a question about Tiananmen, well, it\u2019s not going to respond to you the same way as if it was a system developed in France or the US,\u201d Clement Delangue, the CEO of HuggingFace, warned on a French podcast in September 2024, TechCrunch previously reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you have a country like China that becomes by far the strongest on AI, in fact they will be capable of spreading certain cultural aspects that perhaps the Western world wouldn\u2019t want to see spread,\u201d Delangue said in the podcast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An uproar with a popular Kindle competitor e-reader has showcased how the use of Chinese AI models in US products could unwittingly spread Chinese propaganda. An LLM made by TikTok\u2019s parent company ByteDance was used by an e-reader called Boox, according to screenshots about the AI shared on Reddit. When asked questions about China and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":649409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/GettyImages-1162754481.jpg?resize=1200,801","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[77337,153630,139326,153631,61594],"class_list":["post-649408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-boox","tag-bytedance","tag-e-readers","tag-exclusive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}