China’s A.I. Advances Help Its Tech Industry, and State Security
- 6 years ago
China’s A.I. Advances Help Its Tech Industry, and State Security
Even some global companies are impressed: Delphi, a major American auto supplier, offers iFlyTek’s technology to carmakers in China,
while Volkswagen plans to build the Chinese company’s speech recognition technology into many of its cars in China next year.
“The Chinese government has been collecting the voice patterns of tens of thousands of people with little transparency about the program or laws regulating who can be targeted or how
that information is going to be used,” Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director, wrote in a report in October.
China “does not have the stringent privacy laws that Western companies have, nor are Chinese citizens against having their data collected, as (arguably
speaking) government monitoring is a fact of China,” analysts with the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein wrote in a report in November.
“But due to the advantage of a huge amount of users and China’s social governance, A. I.
will develop faster and spread from China to the world.”
An iFlyTek spokeswoman said the company had yet to receive required permission from officials
in Anhui, the Chinese province where it is based, to speak with the foreign news media.
Mr. Liu, the head of iFlyTek’s automotive business, said
that the company’s systems would be installed next year in some Jeeps sold in China and that it was developing automotive voice systems with Daimler, which owns the Mercedes-Benz brand.
In an October report, a human rights group said the company was helping the authorities compile a
biometric voice database of Chinese citizens that could be used to track activists and others.
Even some global companies are impressed: Delphi, a major American auto supplier, offers iFlyTek’s technology to carmakers in China,
while Volkswagen plans to build the Chinese company’s speech recognition technology into many of its cars in China next year.
“The Chinese government has been collecting the voice patterns of tens of thousands of people with little transparency about the program or laws regulating who can be targeted or how
that information is going to be used,” Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch’s China director, wrote in a report in October.
China “does not have the stringent privacy laws that Western companies have, nor are Chinese citizens against having their data collected, as (arguably
speaking) government monitoring is a fact of China,” analysts with the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein wrote in a report in November.
“But due to the advantage of a huge amount of users and China’s social governance, A. I.
will develop faster and spread from China to the world.”
An iFlyTek spokeswoman said the company had yet to receive required permission from officials
in Anhui, the Chinese province where it is based, to speak with the foreign news media.
Mr. Liu, the head of iFlyTek’s automotive business, said
that the company’s systems would be installed next year in some Jeeps sold in China and that it was developing automotive voice systems with Daimler, which owns the Mercedes-Benz brand.
In an October report, a human rights group said the company was helping the authorities compile a
biometric voice database of Chinese citizens that could be used to track activists and others.