China’s Push into A.I. Has Led to a Problem: Too Much Usage (2/2)
As citizens embrace the technology for entertainment,
relationships and even farming advice, the government is stepping up efforts to
set limits.
The NYT - By Yan Zhuang (Siyi Zhao contributed research. Yan
Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.)
Oct. 2, 2026
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Real World Problems
Just as in many countries, China is struggling with
so-called A.I. literacy — understanding how the technology works and its
limits. In recent months, the media has documented a growing number of A.I.
mishaps involving people who blindly believed in the technology.
There was the case of a hiker who became stranded atop a mountain in August after A.I.-generated instructions left him improperly equipped. In several separate cases earlier in the summer, people fell ill after eating poisonous mushrooms that were misidentified by A.I., including a 9-year-old boy who spent eight days in a hospital.
One of the most widely covered cases involved a farmer in the eastern province of Anhui who lost 25 acres of sesame seedlings in July after following a pesticide regimen drawn up by an A.I. assistant.
The 67-year-old farmer, whom the reports identified only by his last name, Wu, lost 150,000 yuan, or about $22,000, worth of crops after the A.I. recommended an herbicide that turned out to be unsuitable, the reports said.
The Communist Party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, argued in a commentary that A.I. in sectors like agriculture should use only information that comes from authoritative sources.
It also called for farmers to be trained in “critical thinking about A.I. suggestions, helping farmers transform from passive implementers of technology into active participants who can control the tools.”
A Backlash Against Cheap A.I. Fodder
A.I. has also become ubiquitous in micro dramas, the wildly
popular short-form, soapy shows that are made for mobile viewing. In the first
eight months of the year, more than 90 percent of the 430,000 micro dramas
released in China were generated by A.I., the government said in late
September.
These dramas can be churned out cheaply in minutes with no cameras, production crews or human performers. But they have come under fire for their low quality and for taking the jobs of humans.
An article in August in Beijing Youth Daily, the official publication of the Communist Youth League, complained that production companies were churning out A.I.-created micro dramas with boring, interchangeable characters.
Some influential voices have gone as far as to say they will boycott micro dramas generated entirely by A.I.
Hu Xijin, the former editor of the state-run Global Times, told his 25 million followers on the social media platform Weibo recently that he would not watch such dramas to avoid “filling up our recreational time with cheap A.I. fodder like pig feed.”
Translation
中國大力發展人工智能引發問題:過度使用(2/2)
隨著民眾將人工智能應用於娛樂、人際關係甚至農業建議等領域,政府正加強對其進行限制
現實世界的問題
與許多國家一樣,中國也面臨所謂的「人工智能素養」問題 - 即民眾對人工智能技術運作原理及其局限性的理解不足。近幾個月來,媒體報導了越來越多的人工智能失誤事件,這些事故都與人們盲目相信人工智能技術有關。
例如,今年8月,一名登山者因人工智能生成的指令導致裝備不當而被困在山頂。今年夏天早些時候,還有幾單案例,人們因誤食人工智能識別的毒蘑菇而生病,其中包括一名9歲男孩,他在醫院住了8天。
其中一起廣為人知的案例是安徽省一位農民在7月因採納人工智能助理制定的殺蟲劑方案而損失了25英畝芝麻苗。
報道稱,這位67歲的農民(報道中只透露其姓氏為Wu)因人工智能推薦了一種不適用的除草劑而損失了價值15萬元人民幣(約2.2萬美元)的農作物。
中共喉舌《人民日報》在一篇評論文章中指出,人工智能在農業等領域的應用,是應該只使用來自權威來源的資訊。
該評論還呼籲對農民進行「批判性思考」的培訓,幫助農民從被動的技術執行者轉變為能夠掌控工具的積極參與者。
對廉價人工智能素材的反彈
人工智能人工智能在微劇領域也無所不在。微劇是一種風靡全球的短篇肥皂劇,專為使用手機或平板等觀看而設計。政府在9月下旬表示,今年前八個月,中國發布的43萬部微劇中,超過90%是由人工智能產生的。
這些微劇無需攝影機、製作團隊或真人演員,可在幾分鐘內低成本完成製作。但它們也因品質低落和搶走人類工作而飽受批評。
8月,《北京青年報》(共青團官方刊物)發表文章,批評製作公司大量生產人工智能生成的微劇,這些微劇角色乏味且千篇一律。
一些有影響力的人士甚至表示,他們將抵制完全由人工智能生成的微劇。
前《環球時報》總編輯胡錫進最近在社交媒體平台微博上告訴他的2,500萬粉絲,他不會看這類電視劇,以免「把我們的休閒時間浪費在像豬飼料一樣廉價的人工智能素材上」。
So, as China’s government pushes its citizens
to embrace artificial intelligence, it is confronting a problem partly of its
own making: overreliance on the technology. China is struggling with so-called
A.I. literacy — understanding how the technology works and its limits. Apparently,
all AI users should be trained
in critical thinking about what the A.I. has suggested.
