Chinese ebook reader Boox ditches GPT for state-censored China LLM pushing propaganda
Chinese ebook reader Boox ditches GPT for state-censored China LLM pushing propaganda
A recent AI model switch at Chinese e-reader company Boox has raised concerns about censorship and propaganda.
Boox recently switched its AI assistant from Microsoft Azure GPT-3 to a language model created by ByteDance, TikTok's parent company.
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Testing shows the new AI assistant heavily censors certain topics. It refuses to criticize China or its allies, including Russia, Syria's Assad regime, and North Korea. The system even blocks references to "Winnie the Pooh" - a term that's banned in China because it's used to mock President Xi Jinping.
When asked about sensitive topics, the assistant either dodges questions or promotes state narratives. For example, when discussing Russia's role in Ukraine, it frames the conflict as a "complex geopolitical situation" triggered by NATO expansion concerns. The system also spreads Chinese state messaging about Tiananmen Square instead of addressing historical facts.
When users tried to bring attention to the censorship on Boox's Reddit forum, their posts were removed. The company hasn't made any official statement about the situation, but users are reporting that the AI assistant is currently unavailable.
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In China, every AI model has to pass a government review to make sure it follows "socialist values" before it can launch. These systems aren't allowed to create any content that goes against official government positions.
We've already seen what this means in practice: Baidu's ERNIE-ViLG image AI won't process any requests about Tiananmen Square, and while Kling's video generator refuses to show Tiananmen Square protests, it has no problem creating videos of a burning White House.
Some countries are already taking steps to address these concerns. Taiwan, for example, is developing its own language model called "Taide" to give companies and government agencies an AI option that's free from Chinese influence.
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"Winnie the Pooh" - a term that's banned in China because it's used to mock President Xi Jinping.
What a weak snowflake. A confident and capable leader doesn't fear opposition.
Boox are a GPL violator and refuse to share source they are legally obligated to. They can get the fuck out of here.
As far as I can tell they've still not released the source code (correct me if I'm wrong) so everyone should stay away from them.
Most buyers couldn't tell you what source code is to save their own lives, so that's easier said than done.
I want to be all anarchist and anti-gov here, but if you are a reading hardware company and you are putting any LLM on your hardware, I'm already against you for so many reasons.
All LLMs have propaganda baked in to them.
The difference is that it's intentional here.
Try asking chat gpt how to arm an insurgent group to overthrow the government. Or get it to admit the usa is a democracy in name only.
The difference is that we don't see propaganda for what it is when it's just "common sense" or the values being propagandised to us are ones we agree with. There are explicit censors in chat gpt.
Why would you ever need a LLM on an eBook reader? Do you just let it summarize your books so you don't have to read them?
I could see it useful if you need the LLM to explain something maybe? If you're reading something in a language not native to your own, or just something that's using quite complex language & writing, then it may be useful to just have a paragraph or sentence explained to you. Or maybe the book references something you're not familiar with and can get a quick explanation by the LLM.
I've done this to give myself something akin to Cliff's Notes, to review each chapter after I read it. I find it extremely useful, particularly for more difficult reads. Reading philosophy texts that were written a hundred years ago and haphazardly translated 75 years ago can be a challenge.
That said, I have not tried to build this directly into my ereader and I haven't used Boox's specific service. But the concept has clear and tested value.
I would be interested to see how it summarizes historical texts about these topics. I don't need facts (much less opinions) baked into the LLM. Facts should come from the user-provided source material alone. Anything else would severely hamper its usefulness.
An ebook reader doesn't need LLM on it GPT or not
Ah man, they make great E-ink android tablets... Was just thinking of upgrading my Nova 3 to the new Note 4C. That's a shame.
I vaguely remember there being a FOSS OS you can put on Kobos, can you also do that on Boox?
You can probably get around it with certain prompts, just practice on https://gandalf.lakera.ai/
The discussions on this have kind of gone off the rails, so I'm locking this post. Please don't sling insults at each other because you have a disagreement about what is or isn't propaganda and stop being weirdly defensive of countries as a whole - none of them are a monolith, they are all ran by people.
Is everyone on beehaw just thoroughly bought in to anti-Chinese propaganda. Seems every post that makes my feed is more of this garbage. Should I send them the way of .world?
So factual reporting about Chinese censorship is "anti-Chinese propaganda"? Are you really that thin-skinned about your favorite dictatorship?
Are you clear on how propaganda works?
With how much hate I see about the US here, I could say the same thing there.
Calling out people for doing bad shit is kinda normal. It just so happens that China, Russia, and the US do a lot of bad shit, so they get called out a lot. If it bugs you, then just filter out posts by specific people or with specific keywords.
This has two issues with it that are sourced from the fact that most people here are likely from the States or similar. Namely:
- How are we supposed to do anything about China or Russia? It's anger for its own sake.
- Criticism of the U.S. is unlikely to make Americans racist towards themselves. Sinophobia, meanwhile, is a real risk.
This aside, I personally am irritated by the quantity moreso than anything else. As I said elsewhere, it's the same few users, and I find it obsessive. It stops sounding to me like "I want people to be aware of particular issues from China" and starts sounding to me like "I want to bombard people with all possible negativity about China until they hate everything related to the place as much as I do."
Thanks to these folks, Beehaw virtually always has at least one post about China or Russia on its front page. Often several. Credit where it's due; I've seen a pro-Palestine post here and there, which I appreciate. But Christ, I'm sick of the rest. Blocks are fair, but I feel like that just hides the issue rather than solving it. I feel like I'm seeing a propaganda mill in action, and I don't like the idea of just ignoring it.
I started there with .world but simple people clump together to make themselves feel ok and instances reach a point where they just aren’t worth it. It took Reddit years to do that it happens on lemmy instances rather quickly. Oh well. I don’t really care. I just can’t stand posts pumping nationalistic hate. Especially obvious propaganda.
It's pretty weird and I noticed this too. And this news is like.. a non issue? Choosing crap over shit is newsworthy only if you specify the nationality of the shit, which is fucked up
God forbid there's a left leaning instance that isn't a Tankie infested cesspool.
By left leaning you mean liberal? I cook with all that, thanks…
There's 2-3 users who post about China/Russia to an extraordinary degree. I could mention them here, but for the sake of avoiding potential harassment (however unlikely) I'd rather not publicly single them out. Suffice to say if you spend a decent amount of time here you probably know who they are.
I find it obsessive and obnoxious at best. At worst, I start to wonder if there are more accounts doing it than there are people behind them.
Feeling pretty good about not getting a Boox e-ink tablet now.
Tardigrada strikes again. What's this, radio free asia lemmy branch? Lol
You know, if you wait a month, you'll have articles to post on the US as well. Patience is a virtue.