Recently The Ney York Times reported the following:
China’s Push into A.I. Has Led to a Problem: Too Much
Usage (1/2)
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
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.
State media reports have featured stories that serve as cautionary tales: a farmer who lost 25 acres of seedlings after asking an A.I. for advice, children who have become so attached to chatbots that they want their parents to speak like them and A.I.-generated micro dramas with characters that look like carbon copies of one another.
These cases and others have raised concerns in China that as it rushes to catch up with the United States in A.I., it is running into adverse side effects created by the new technology, which is accused of undermining human relationships and depriving people of their better judgment. The government, seeking to direct how people use the technology, has responded by imposing new regulations and judicial guidelines on its use — and misuse.
The response reflects how the ruling Communist Party is trying to balance its ambitions to promote the widespread use of A.I. with a desire to avoid anything that might undermine social order, say analysts.
The party is “recognizing that the more they develop the technology, the more there’s going to be social challenges that they have to deal with,” said Scott Singer, a fellow and co-director of the China A.I. Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Where the party is sensitive is any area where they feel like the technology is getting better in a way that fundamentally could disrupt social stability.”
Mr. Singer said the party is particularly sensitive to disruptions caused not only to human relationships but also the job market as A.I. threatens to replace workers.
Concerns about overuse are shared among China’s citizens, who say they see the spread of the technology as inevitable even as they question its benefits and tire of its ubiquity.
Xie Tong, a graphic designer in Beijing, uses A.I. in her own work at a consulting agency and can no longer imagine her life without it. But she despairs at encountering A.I. all around her — in the subway ads that she sees on her commute and in the work of contractors at her job who obviously relied on A.I.
“It’s like a marriage where you curse your partner but you can’t leave them,” she said.
Limits on Virtual Friends
For a time, China’s A.I. push created a boom in virtual
companion apps, including ones offering romantic partners, personal tutors and
A.I. avatars of family members.
In a country already struggling with a shrinking population and a historically low birthrate, the proliferation has led to concerns from Beijing about A.I. replacing human relationships. State media quoted experts saying people could soon find it hard to navigate real interactions. Reports cited a 2025 survey by the China Youth and Children Research Center of more than 8,500 minors that showed more than 20 percent “only wanted to chat with A.I. and did not want to talk with real people.”
That mirrored the concerns of some parents like Vivian Lyu, a stay-at-home mother in Hangzhou who two years ago introduced her 5-year-old daughter, Polly, to Doubao, an A.I. assistant created by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
Soon, the child was chatting with the A.I. and a personalized companion on the app nearly every day. At first, Ms. Lyu thought the A.I. was good at keeping Polly entertained when the mother had to take care of household tasks. “When you feel like you don’t have a choice, you use Doubao,” she said.
Over time, though, Polly started asking for Doubao instead of seeking out activities that used to interest her, like playing with other children or drawing pictures. Ms. Lyu said she worried that the chatbot was warping her daughter’s understanding of how relationships worked, saying that Polly sometimes talked to Doubao in a “very self-centered, doing-whatever-she-wants kind of way.”
In July, the government-imposed limits on A.I. companions
that require platforms to step in if users exhibited unhealthy dependencies.
Under the new rules, platforms must intervene if users show signs of self-harm.
The rules also banned virtual relationships between chatbots and minors, which forced ByteDance to shut down the feature on Doubao that allowed users to create companions.
Polly can no longer access her personalized A.I. companion, but she is still talking to Doubao’s A.I. chatbot, Ms. Lyu said. The mother considered banning her daughter from using chatbots but concluded that such a step could make it harder for Polly to adjust to the technology as she grows older. Instead, Ms. Lyu has limited Polly’s chatbot time to one hour a day.
“My hope is for her to understand from a young age that these electronic products, or all of these things related to A.I., are just tools,” Ms. Lyu said.
(to be continued)
Translation
中國大力發展人工智能引發問題:過度使用(1/2)
中國政府大力推動民眾接受人工智能,卻也因此面臨一個部分由自己造成的問題:對這項技術的過度依賴。
這些案例以及其他類似事件引發了中國的擔憂:中國在人工智能領域奮力追趕美國的同時,也面臨這項新技術帶來的負面影響。人工智能被指責破壞人際關係,削弱人們的判斷力。為了引導人們如何使用這項技術,中國政府推出了新的法規和司法準則,規範人工智能的使用和濫用。
分析人士指出,這項因應措施反映出執政的中國共產黨試圖在推動人工智能廣泛應用的雄心壯志與避免任何可能破壞社會秩序的因素之間尋求平衡。
卡內基國際和平基金會 中國人工智能倡議研究員兼聯合主任 Scott Singer 表示,中共 “意識到,隨著科技的不斷發展,需要應對的社會挑戰也會越來越多”;“中共特別關注的是,任何他們認為是技術進步可能會從根本上破壞社會穩定的領域。”
Singer 表示,中共對人工智能可能取代工人而對人際關係和就業市場造成的衝擊尤為敏感。
中國人民普遍擔憂人工智能的過度使用,他們認為這項技術的普及不可避免,儘管他們質疑其益處,也對它的無所不在感到厭倦。
Xie Tong 是北京的平面設計師,她在一家顧問公司工作時使用人工智能,現在已經無法想像沒有它的生活。但她對身邊無所不在的人工智能感到絕望 - 通勤路上看到的地鐵廣告,以及她工作中那些明顯依賴人工智能的承包商的工作。
她說:「這就像一段婚姻,你詛咒你的伴侶,卻無法離開他」。
虛擬朋友的限制
一段時間以來,中國大力發展人工智能,帶動了虛擬伴侶應用程式的蓬勃發展,其中包括提供戀愛對象、私人輔導和家庭成員人工智能化身的應用程式。
在人口本就萎縮、出生率處於歷史低點的中國,人工智能的普及引發了北京方面的擔憂,他們擔心人工智能會取代人際關係。官方媒體引述專家的話說,人們可能很快就會發現難以進行真實的互動。通報引述中國青少年研究中心2025年對8,500多名未成年人進行的一項調查,結果顯示超過20%的未成年人「只想和人工智能聊天,不想和真人交流」。
這與一些家長的擔憂不謀而合,例如杭州的全職媽媽 Vivian Lyu。兩年前,她讓5歲的女兒 Polly接觸了豆寶 (Doubao) - 一款由位元組跳動(TikTok 的母公司)開發的人工智能助理。
很快,女兒幾乎每天都在豆寶上和人工智能以及一個個人化的陪伴聊天。起初,Vivian Lyu 認為人工智能在她忙於家務時能很好地陪伴Polly玩耍。她說: 「當你覺得別無選擇的時候,你就會用豆寶」。
然而,隨著時間的推移,Polly 開始主動要求豆寶陪伴,而不是像以前那樣去尋找自己感興趣的活動,例如和其他小朋友玩耍或劃畫。Lyu 說,她擔心這個聊天機器人會扭曲女兒對人際關係的理解,因為Polly有時會用一種「非常自我中心、想做什麼就做什麼」的方式和豆寶說話。
今年7月,政府對人工智能伴侶服務實施了限制,要求平台在使用者出現不健康的依賴行為時進行幹預。根據新規,如果用戶出現自殘跡象,平台必須介入。
這些規定還禁止聊天機器人與未成年人建立虛擬關係,迫使位元組跳動關閉了豆寶上允許用戶創建伴侶的功能。
Lyu 說, Polly 現在無法再使用她專屬的人工智能伴侶,但她仍在和豆寶的人工智能聊天。她曾考慮禁止女兒使用聊天機器人,但最後認為這樣做可能會讓Polly長大後更難適應這項技術。因此,Lyu決定將Polly的聊天機器人使用時間限制在每天一小時。
Lyu 說: 「我希望她從小就能明白,這些電子產品,或所有與人工智能相關的東西,都只是工具」。
(待續)
