A chatbot with decidedly nonsocialist characteristics is no longer available on one of China's most popular messaging apps after serving up unpatriotic answers about topics including the South China Sea and the Communist party. BabyQ, co-developed by Beijing-based Turing Robot, whose website test bot answered questions such as "Do you love the Communist party?" with a swift "No", appeared to have been ditched by Tencent, with the service no longer available on Wednesday. Tencent, a Chinese social media giant, was unavailable for comment on whether it had pulled the chatbot, an automated service designed to respond to human queries, from its QQ messaging platform. However, XiaoBing, a chatbot developed by Microsoft with 100 million users in China, was still accessible on QQ, complete with off-message responses. "My China dream is to go to America," it told netizens on QQ, according to a screengrab on Weibo, the microblogging platform. On Wednesday it dodged the question of patriotism...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.