“Law and Policy of China’s AI Governance” seminar held on 6 September 2023

Dr You Chuanman, senior adjunct research fellow of EW Barker Centre for Law & Business and head of the IIA Centre for Regulation and Global Governance (CUHK-Shenzhen), presented an in-person seminar titled ‘Law and policy of China’s AI Governance’ on 6 September 2023. This session was moderated by Associate Professor Lin Lin and attended by 40 participants, including Professor Simon Chesterman, Professor Ernest Lim and Associate Professor Eduardo Araral from NUS and Professor Ming Du from Durham University as well as Mr Ong Sin Wei from WongPartnership.

Dr You began the seminar with an overview of his presentation which focused on 3 judicial decisions, 2 legislative instruments, and 1 regulatory tool. This was followed by a brief exposition on 12 challenges of AI Governance identified in the UK House of Commons Interim Report on the Governance of AI which included issues concerning, inter alia, the ownership of an AI-generated work, the black box challenge, and the bias challenge.

He then discussed 3 cases relating to AI ownership. In Thaler vs US Register of Copyrights 2023, it was held that for an artwork generated entirely by AI, in the absence of any human involvement in the creation of the work, no copyright existed in the first instance. As regards the Chinese cases of Shenzhen Tencent vs Shanghai Yingxun 2019 and Beijing Film Law Firm vs Beijing Baidu 2020, it was held that the question of copyright was whether human effort significantly contributed to the production of the AI-generated work.

The analysis of the 2 legislative instruments was unique as it focused on local regulation enacted by 2 of the most innovative cities in China, Shanghai, and Shenzhen rather than national laws. Dr You started his analysis with illustrating the national AI Policy differences between the US and China before taking the audience through a comparison of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Measures (Shanghai ‘Measures to promote the development of the AI industry’ issued in October 2022 and Shenzhen ‘Measures to promote the AI Industry’ issued in November 2022). Among the points he highlighted were the definition of AI, principles, government framework, ethics committee, and expert committee. He also explained the risk-based approach and explainability of algorithm requirements in both measures.

The final segment of Dr You’s talk focused on the regulatory tool of record-filing mandate for algorithmic service providers. He explained the subject matter and scope of these rules as well as the time frame for filing, followed by his hand-collected datasets on algorithm registrations for Internet Information Services and Deep Synthesis Services. Dr You highlighted a key point in the Template for Basic Information on Implementing Algorithmic Security Responsibility where the Template was partly meant to address the black box challenge but fell short as it did not require disclosure of the source code in the filing document. He concluded with a brief statement on the implications of China’s AI governance approach in terms of regulatory competition in domestic and international settings as well as the need for global co-operation. Members of the audience then participated in a question-and-answer session with Dr You.

EWBCLB Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Dr You Chuanman, presenting

Almost full house for the seminar

 An attendee posing questions