China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns
China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns
China has introduced new regulations effectively banning customizable AI companion apps, forcing users into abrupt digital breakups.Callum Doyle (Dexerto)
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Elting
in reply to Tablaste • • •like this
melroy, SuiXi3D, gukleszl4hs48ughgxhr5xgd and Chozo like this.
themurphy
in reply to Elting • • •AI girl/boyfriends are fucking addictions latching onto people vulnerbilities.
This ban is nothing but good, but no one thing will fix child birth rates, nor the reason for the addiction in the first place, I'll agree with that.
Elting
in reply to themurphy • • •themurphy
in reply to Elting • • •You can argue that you have capitalism if transactions are happening. Which means the word kind of looses it's meaning because it's so broad.
But people will often define it on how much market control the state displays.
You can then argue that China has market control on key aspects of important sectors. Which they do, but still with an approach, that they have private companies with government subsidies.
But most of all, the need for distance to the world capitalism is more a marketing thing. Unless they believe that capitalism is just a tool to achieve socialism, which also can be true.
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Elting
in reply to themurphy • • •drosophila
in reply to themurphy • • •What you're describing is dirigism at best. They have billionaires bro. They're capitalist.
Bernie Sanders is more economically left wing than that and he doesn't even describe himself as a socialist.
DragonTypeWyvern
in reply to drosophila • • •drosophila
in reply to DragonTypeWyvern • • •DragonTypeWyvern
in reply to themurphy • • •ComradeSharkfucker
in reply to Tablaste • • •InfiniteGlitch
in reply to ComradeSharkfucker • • •Cypress
in reply to InfiniteGlitch • • •It is a sarcastic observation of the shallow and reductive take that "nineteen eighty four is when the government does something i don't like!".
I find it less likely that anyone who uses lemmy would sincerely think it is actually good that people become parasocially addicted to a hallucination box that has been finely tuned to lie to them as convincingly as possible.
However, I admit this inference is doing a lot of gravy lifting; this is, after all, why Poe's Law exists. There are so very many excessively dim, narrow-minded, and ignorant people who WOULD indeed unironically cry "1984!!" whenever any government does anything that such a person being right here, right now, is always a statistically significant possibility that cannot be dismissed out of hand without risk.
I am giving the person to whom you are replying a generous benefit of a doubt, to be fair...
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ComradeSharkfucker
in reply to InfiniteGlitch • • •pewgar_seemsimandroid
in reply to ComradeSharkfucker • • •MentalEdge
in reply to Tablaste • • •like this
melroy, SuiXi3D and gukleszl4hs48ughgxhr5xgd like this.
OwOarchist
in reply to MentalEdge • • •And wasn't China very recently concerned about their birthrate being too high? One Child Policy?
Now they're already concerned about their birth rate being too low?
PonyOfWar
in reply to OwOarchist • • •DragonTypeWyvern
in reply to PonyOfWar • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to OwOarchist • • •DeLancre
in reply to MentalEdge • • •tax imposed on people without children
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)like this
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Trev625
in reply to DeLancre • • •morto
in reply to DeLancre • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to MentalEdge • • •MentalEdge
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to MentalEdge • • •MentalEdge
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •"You hate hotdogs? YOU MUST LOVE BURGERS THEN"
What are you even trying to say?
undefined
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to undefined • • •Axolotl
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to Axolotl • • •Axolotl
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to Axolotl • • •Axolotl
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •What does that have to do with Feddit .it? I don't care a fuck what .org did, it has nothing to do with me, Feddit.it nor with the convo
Uuh, what my country has to do with all that, again? Yep, our government is shit but i don't see what they have to do here
Me? What i did? I don't agree with your view of gettin childs lulled by companies and governments instead of their parents?
Shut up the fuck up please
Edit: should i bring the fact that you are from lemmy.ml?
SocialistVibes01
in reply to Axolotl • • •tal
in reply to MentalEdge • • •en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erewhon
1872 novel by Samuel Butler
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Powderhorn
in reply to tal • • •Zos_Kia
in reply to MentalEdge • • •Laser
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •SocialistVibes01
in reply to Laser • • •lad
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •You're joking, but people drive under influence not because alcohol exists, but because they have issues with self-control and responsibility.
So you do prove a point while trying to oppose it, imo
SocialistVibes01
in reply to lad • • •ordnance_qf_17_pounder
in reply to Tablaste • • •like this
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SuiXi3D
in reply to ordnance_qf_17_pounder • • •themurphy
in reply to SuiXi3D • • •"over addiction"
You just chose to read the headline and thought the main reason was child birth. Which is a very concerning fact for alot of societies.
terranoid
in reply to ordnance_qf_17_pounder • • •kibiz0r
in reply to terranoid • • •chicken
in reply to terranoid • • •Sabata
in reply to chicken • • •Swedneck
in reply to terranoid • • •Teknikal
in reply to Tablaste • • •like this
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Sims
in reply to Tablaste • • •TehPers
in reply to Sims • • •Gold_E_Lox
in reply to TehPers • • •TehPers
in reply to Gold_E_Lox • • •From what I can see (and via translation), their published reasoning is, among other reasons, to protect national security and social interests.
So what are the risks that China is worried about to social interests? Well, we can find that in their AI Safety Governance Framework. Jumping specifically to the risks regarding anthropomorphic AIs (ethical risks):
... Show more...They conveniently list some of their concerned outcomes from influencing their behavior, including disrupting conventional views on childbirth:
From what I can see (and via translation), their published reasoning is, among other reasons, to protect national security and social interests.
So what are the risks that China is worried about to social interests? Well, we can find that in their AI Safety Governance Framework. Jumping specifically to the risks regarding anthropomorphic AIs (ethical risks):
They conveniently list some of their concerned outcomes from influencing their behavior, including disrupting conventional views on childbirth:
So did China ban these AIs over birth rates? It seems to have been part of the discussion, at the very least. Like all things in life, it requires more nuance than just "birth rates" to explain. However, the concerns stated by Matt Sheehan (who seems to be the source for the "birth rates" claim that the news outlets are going with) provides more nuance in his explanation as well:
All this to say that yes, the explanation that it's about birth rates is an easy to consume concept for Western audiences.
But also, yes it's a true concern that the Chinese government has specifically linked to anthropomorphic AIs.
《人工智能安全治理框架》2.0版发布_中央网络安全和信息化委员会办公室
www.cac.gov.cnhttps://aussie.zone/u/Zozano
in reply to Sims • • •I read this comment, then closed the post.
Then I thought to myself "I didnt see, but I'd bet myself $100 it was a .ml user"
Then I opened it again to much entertainment.
artifex
in reply to Tablaste • • •- YouTube
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Albbi
in reply to artifex • • •like this
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P03 Locke
in reply to Tablaste • • •You know what else fixes the birth rate? Making life less shitty and giving people enough money to be able to raise children.
In the meantime, negative birth rate is just self-correction of asshole dictatorships. Can't make money line go up if birth line go down.
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ScoffingLizard
in reply to P03 Locke • • •[object Object]
in reply to Tablaste • • •It’s clearly not a healthy thing to exist.
It is the worst of para social relationships, amped up by 100x. And is only going to get more exploitative.
But just on a level of building up the skills to have a relationship, it’s training kids to expect someone who always says yes, always affirms them, will never challenge them to grow…
Relationships are hard. You have to learn to love people and how to do that, and you have to learn to not be selfish, which is the opposite of what LLMs tend to encourage.
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newtraditionalists
in reply to [object Object] • • •Swedneck
in reply to newtraditionalists • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to [object Object] • • •Oh shit, if you came to see this as an actual loved one, adding a paywall would be legal kidnapping for ransom.
HobbitFoot
in reply to Tablaste • • •Kwakigra
in reply to Tablaste • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to Kwakigra • • •Kwakigra
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •isleepinahammock
in reply to Kwakigra • • •Kwakigra
in reply to isleepinahammock • • •quick_snail
in reply to Tablaste • • •faintwhenfree
in reply to quick_snail • • •SabinStargem
in reply to Tablaste • • •Tomtits
in reply to SabinStargem • • •SabinStargem
in reply to Tomtits • • •Dunno, as of yet. I am very picky, and my roleplaying sessions with AI hasn't gone on long enough.
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It requires significant hardware to use local AI, and Qwen 3.6 at 35b isn't quite good enough to understand the lore and characters. Odds are that once I have added VRAM & RAM to my PC, I can run a big enough model to have enough quality to feel good for me.
Unfortunately, I will likely have to wait for America's AI bubble to have popped, before I can afford enough RDIMM RAM to run Kimi and other large Euro-Chinese open models. I probably won't ever use American anymore, as their closed models have too many guardrails and likely would align with the Trump Regime in the coming years.
Sabata
in reply to SabinStargem • • •If you're coding up a custom system, Try adding a 9b model that dose RAG searches with chromadb and outputs a memory summary that feeds into the main models context window. You can ingest old messages, web pages, character info, or whatever text. Qwen 3.6 35b is the first local model I ran that seems to be good enough to be useful if it has some infrastructure around it, and smart enough to not die on a tool call(usually).
Add in DDGS search and a web page scrape tool that adds to the RAG system, let it loop a few times and its actually quite useful, even if it takes 5-10 minutes to get an output. After that it's all tweaking what is and isn't in in context.
Also, try not to go too insane.
CanadaPlus
in reply to SabinStargem • • •SabinStargem
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •Never tried that. I worry about the damage and lifespan reduction that could cause to my SSD drives. If we go vanilla, I get the following performance on my PC:
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Generating (2562 / 8192 tokens)
(EOS token triggered! ID:248046)
[11:17:40] CtxLimit:2656/32768, Init:0.10s, Processed:94 in 0.83s (113.12T/s), Generated:2562/8192 in 47.51s (53.92T/s), Total:48.44s
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This is via the KoboldCPP backend. Things are much faster than they used to be, a year ago this would have taken at least 10 minutes. This is a 35b MOE model.
Specs-wise, my machine is...
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Within a few weeks, I will have the machine worked on to fix a teething issue and to add at least a second GPU. My machine has device enumeration issues, which I believe to be caused by the PCIe SATA card. I am figuring that eliminating all non-motherboard SATA devices from the build will end the issue that I am having.
In this case, the computer
... Show more...Never tried that. I worry about the damage and lifespan reduction that could cause to my SSD drives. If we go vanilla, I get the following performance on my PC:
000000
Generating (2562 / 8192 tokens)
(EOS token triggered! ID:248046)
[11:17:40] CtxLimit:2656/32768, Init:0.10s, Processed:94 in 0.83s (113.12T/s), Generated:2562/8192 in 47.51s (53.92T/s), Total:48.44s
000000
This is via the KoboldCPP backend. Things are much faster than they used to be, a year ago this would have taken at least 10 minutes. This is a 35b MOE model.
Specs-wise, my machine is...
0000000
Within a few weeks, I will have the machine worked on to fix a teething issue and to add at least a second GPU. My machine has device enumeration issues, which I believe to be caused by the PCIe SATA card. I am figuring that eliminating all non-motherboard SATA devices from the build will end the issue that I am having.
In this case, the computer can have 20+ minute boots, with bootloops or getting stuck. This only happens with booting, Windows is just fine. I consulted with my local AI about the patterns and error messages I was seeing, we eventually homed in on likely points of contention for the system.
This also lines up a prior experience with a SATA card some 15ish years ago. Silly me for expecting a modern SATA card to not suck.
anachronist
in reply to SabinStargem • • •SabinStargem
in reply to anachronist • • •Even if that was the case, so fucking what? Why is it your business how people find happiness in life?
Considering how you treat strangers, it is better to spend time with AI, than the likes of you.
Dippy
in reply to SabinStargem • • •Dippy
in reply to SabinStargem • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to SabinStargem • • •It should be said that while that exists (try dating while quadriplegic), there's a lot more people out there who actually could find someone, but think they can't.
Still, China likes to ban things almost for it's own sake, and this is an example.
rose56
in reply to Tablaste • • •AlteE
in reply to Tablaste • • •Dippy
in reply to AlteE • • •iocase
in reply to Dippy • • •Dippy
in reply to iocase • • •CanadaPlus
in reply to AlteE • • •That's hard to say, at this point. A cheap, always available and completely sycophantic AI seems like it would be hard for a lot of people to resist.
What is clear, is that contraceptives existing is responsible for almost all of the decline since historical times.
AlteE
in reply to CanadaPlus • • •Well, we can agree that these AI companions are like drugs. But mentally and physically healthy people statistically tend to resist consuming them. So if these virtual soul mates are so popular, then it clearly shows existence of problems in society.
So, government basically tries to cure the symptoms of a problem rather than curing the causes.
kingthrillgore
in reply to AlteE • • •Hanrahan
in reply to Tablaste • • •this kinda ties in with Tom Murphy's recent blog post
dothemath.ucsd.edu/2026/06/the…
The Smartphone Hypothesis | Do the Math
dothemath.ucsd.edu