China’s Artificial Intelligence Ethics: Policy Development in an Emergent Community of Practice

ABSTRACT

Extant literature has not fully accounted for the changes underway in China’s perspectives on the ethical risks of artificial intelligence (AI). This article develops a community-of-practice (CoP) approach to the study of Chinese policymaking in the field of AI. It shows that the Chinese approach to ethical AI emerges from the communication of practices of a relatively stable group of actors from three domains—the government, academia, and the private sector. This Chinese CoP is actively cultivated and led by government actors. The paper draws attention to CoP configurations during collective situated-learning and problem-solving among its members that inform the evolution of Chinese ethical concerns of AI. In so doing, it demonstrates how a practice-oriented approach can contribute to interpreting Chinese politics on AI governance.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank colleagues of the Centre for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark especially Ingvild Bode, Hendrick Huelss, Chiara De Franco and the ISA 2022 participants especially Maïka Sondarjee and EmanuelAdler for their generous comments on the earlier versions of this paper. The author would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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² This synthesis is based on: Mark Coeckelbergh, AI Ethics (The MIT Press, 2020); Vincent C. Müller, “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Zalta (Stanford University, 2020); Bernd Carsten Stahl, Artificial Intelligence for a Better Future: An Ecosystem Perspective on the Ethics of AI and Emerging Digital Technologies (Springer, 2021).

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⁸ Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott and William M. Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Harvard Business School Press, 2002); Emanuel Adler, ‘The Spread of Security Communities: Communities of Practice, Self-Restraint, and NATO’s Post—Cold War Transformation’, European Journal of International Relations 14(2), (2008), p. 195.

⁹ Igor Pyrko, Viktor Dörfler and Colin Eden, ‘Thinking Together: What Makes Communities of Practice Work?’, Human Relations 70(4), (2017), p. 389.

¹⁰ Wenger (n 8) 72.

¹¹ Baogang He and Mark E. Warren, ‘Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development’, Perspectives on Politics 9(2), (2011), p. 269; Sebastian Heilmann, Lea Shih and Andreas Hofem, ‘National Planning and Local Technology Zones: Experimental Governance in China’s Torch Programme’, The China Quarterly 216, (2013), p. 896; Jinghan Zeng, ‘China’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation: A Top-Down National Command Approach?’, Global Policy 12(3), (2021), p. 399.

¹² Stefan Larsson, ‘On the Governance of Artificial Intelligence through Ethics Guidelines’, Asian Journal of Law and Society 7(3), (2020), p. 437; Alexa Hagerty and Igor Rubinov, Global AI Ethics: A Review of the Social Impacts and Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence (Cornell University arXiv.org, 2019); Anna Jobin, Marcello Ienca and Effy Vayena, ‘The Global Landscape of AI Ethics Guidelines’, Nature Machine Intelligence 1(9), (2019), p. 389.

¹³ Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (n 8) 4.

¹⁴ Wenger (n 8) 72.

¹⁵ ibid 82–83.

¹⁶ Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’, International Organization 59(1), (2005), p. 39; Davide Nicolini, Practice Theory, Work, and Organization: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013).

¹⁷ Wenger (n 8) 78.

¹⁸ Previous CoP studies referring to Chinese cases are concentrated in the field of educational sciences with one exception—Reza Hasmath and Jennifer Y. J. Hsu, ‘A Community of Practice for Chinese NGOs’, Journal of Chinese Political Science 25, (2020), p. 575.

¹⁹ Zeng (n 11) 403.

²⁰ Iver B. Neumann and Vincent Pouliot, ‘Untimely Russia: Hysteresis in Russian-Western Relations over the Past Millennium’ Security Studies 20(1), (2011), p. 105.

²¹ He and Warren (n 11) 270–271; Carles Boix and Milan W. Svolik, ‘The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government: Institutions, Commitment, and Power-Sharing in Dictatorships’, The Journal of Politics 75(2), (2013), p. 300.

²² Nicolini (n 16) 89–92.

²³ Rory Truex, ‘Authoritarian Gridlock? Understanding Delay in the Chinese Legislative System’, Comparative Political Studies 53(9), (2020), p. 1455; Jinghan Zeng, ‘Artificial Intelligence and China’s Authoritarian Governance’, International Affairs 96(6), (2020), p. 1441.

²⁴ Zeng, ‘China’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation’ (n 11) 403–408.

²⁵ The interviewees are not cited directly based on prior agreement. Additional information was collected through reports submitted to one of the authors by companies that were sanctioned on 9 October 2020 by the US Industry and Security Bureau, including Dahua Technology, Hikvision, IFLYTEK, Megvii Technology, Sense Time, Xiamen Meiya Pico Information, and Yitu Technologies.

²⁶ Evan A. Feigenbaum, ‘Who’s Behind China’s High-Technology “Revolution”?: How Bomb Makers Remade Beijing’s Priorities, Policies, and Institutions’, International Security 24(1), (1999), p. 95.

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²⁸ For more on China’s positions on AI, see Zeng Yi, ‘Rengongzhineng zuowei funenggongju ke tuijin quanqiu kechixufazhan mumiao de shixian [AI as the Enabling Tool to Promote the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals]’ Big Data, accessed October 30, 2021, http://bigdata.china.com.cn/2021-12/30/content_41839325.html.

²⁹ Huw Roberts and others, ‘The Chinese Approach to Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Policy, Ethics, and Regulation’, AI & Society 36(1), (2021), p. 59.

³⁰ ibid 70.

³¹ MOST, ‘Guojia xinyida rengongzhineng zhili zhuanyeweiyuanhui zhaokai diyici huiyi, keyibu fubuzhang Limeng chuxi [The National Expert Committee for the Governance of New Generation AI convened the first meeting]’ 2019, accessed October 31, 2022, http://www.most.gov.cn/kjbgz/201903/t20190328_145889.html.

³² Pascale Fung and Etienne Hubert, Confucius, Cyberpunk and Mr. Science: Comparing AI ethics between China and the EU (Cornell University arXiv.org, 2021).

³³ Hepeng Jia, ‘Yi Zeng: Promoting Good Governance of Artificial Intelligence’, National Science Review 7(12), (2020), p. 1954.

³⁴ Cf. e.g. ‘Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI’ (EU, 2019), accessed October 31, 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/ai-alliance-consultation.1.html.

³⁵ Jia (n 33) 1955.

³⁶ Fjeld and others (n 6) 5.

³⁷ Danit Gal, ‘Perspectives and Approaches in AI Ethics: East Asia’ in The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI, ed. Markus D. Dubber, Frank Pasquale and Sunit Das (Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 614.

³⁸ Feigenbaum (n 31) 99.

³⁹ Yanmei Zhu, Xinhua Wittmann and Mike W. Peng, ‘Institution-based Barriers to Innovation in SMEs in China’, Asia Pacific Journal of Management 29(4), (2012), p. 1131.

⁴⁰ K. C. Fung and others, ‘Digital Silk Road, Silicon Valley and Connectivity’, Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies 16(3), (2018), p. 313.

⁴¹ ‘Embracing the New Industrial Revolution’ (China Daily, 2018), accessed November 1, 2022, http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-09/19/content_5323722.htm.

⁴² Andrew Cox, ‘What are Communities of Practice? A Comparative Review of Four Seminal Works’, Journal of Information Science 31(6), (2005), p. 527.

⁴³ Jeffery Ding, ‘Deciphering China’s AI dream’ 2018), accessed November 1, 2022, 21, https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Deciphering_Chinas_AI-Dream.pdf.

⁴⁴ Barry Naughton, ‘Chinese Industrial Policy and the Digital Silk Road: The Case of Alibaba in Malaysia’, Asia Policy 15(1), (2020), p. 23.

⁴⁵ Interview with representatives of Chinese AI companies (Shenzhen, 24 July 2019). The interviewees were reticent on the details of the negative side of working with the government due to the sensitive nature of this topic.

⁴⁶ ‘China, Driverless Vehicles and Cities of the Future’ (China.org.cn, 2018), accessed November 1, 2022, http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2018-07/14/content_56647579.htm.

⁴⁷ Wang Ying, ‘Placing the Chips on Artificial Intelligence’ (China Daily, 2017), accessed November 1, 2022, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-12/01/content_35165525.htm.

⁴⁸ ‘Bytedance Hosts First “Global Festival for AI Ideas” to Drive Global Dialogue on the Power of AI Technology for Social Good’ (PR Newswire Asia, 2017), accessed November 1, 2022, https://en.prnasia.com/releases/apac/Bytedance_Hosts_First_Global_Festival_for_AI_Ideas_to_Drive_Global_Dialogue_on_the_Power_of_AI_Technology_for_Social_Good-196079.shtml.

⁴⁹ ‘Set up a National Ethics Committee for Science and Technology! Xi Jinping has Charted the Course for Standardizing the Development of Cutting-Edge Science and Technology’ (CRJ Online, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022 http://news.cri.cn/20190726/5f1b2be6-b567-71de-72b5-4fd245926280.html.

⁵⁰ ‘China Eyes Wider Application of AI Technologies’ (People’s Daily, 2018), accessed November 2, 2022, http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0314/c90000–9437000.html.

⁵¹ e.g., Zeng Yi, Lu Enmeng and Huangfu Cunqing, Linking Artificial Intelligence Principles (Cornell University arXiv.org, 2019); Beijing AI Principles (Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, 2019); Fu Ying, ‘Understanding the AI Challenge to Humanity’ (China-US Focus, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/understanding-the-ai-challenge-to-humanity.

⁵² ‘Zhineng shidai de jishu lunliguan-chongsu shuzi shehui de xinren [Technological Ethics in the Age of Intelligence: Rebuilding Trust in Digital Society]’ (Tencent AI Lab, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://tisi.org/10890.

⁵³ Wenjun Wu, Tiejun Huang and Ke Gong, ‘Ethical Principles and Governance Technology Development of AI in China’, Engineering 6(3), (2020), p. 302.

⁵⁴ ‘Kuangshi fabu rengongzhineng yingyong zhunze changdao AI jishu jiankang kechixu fazhan [Megvii Released “AI Application Guidelines” to Advocate for the Healthy and Sustainable Development of AI Technology]’ (China News, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1638457497885732541&wfr=spider&for=pc.

⁵⁵ Roberts and others (n 29) 69.

⁵⁶ Louise Lucas and Emily Feng, ‘China’s Push to Become a Tech Superpower Triggers Alarms Abroad’ (Financial Times, 2017), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/1d815944-f1da-11e6-8758–6876151821a6.

⁵⁷ Yifan Yu, ‘Why China’s Ai Players Are Struggling to Evolve Beyond Surveillance’ (Nikkei Asia, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Why-China-s-AI-players-are-struggling-to-evolve-beyond-surveillance.

⁵⁸ Douglas MacMillan, Sam Schechner and Liza Lin, ‘U.S. and Chinese Companies Race to Dominate AI’ (The Wall Street Journal, 2018), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-u-s-companies-may-lose-the-ai-race-1516280677.

⁵⁹ Yuan Yang and Mercedes Ruehl, ‘China’s Leading AI Start-Ups Hit by US Blacklisting’ (Financial Times, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.ft.com/content/663ab29c-e9bd-11e9-85f4-d00e5018f06.

⁶⁰ Li Zheng, ‘Meiguo tuidong zhongmei keji tuoguo de shenceng dongyin ji changqi qushi [The Underlying Motivation and Long-term Trend of “Decoupling” between China and the US]’ (2020) 10(1) ×iandai guoji guanxi [Contemporary International Relations] 33; Chi ZhiPei, ‘Meiguo duihua keji ezhi zhanlue de shishi yu zhiyue [The Implementation and Restriction of US Science and Technology Containment Strategy Against China]’, Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific Journal] 28(6), (2020), p. 27.

⁶¹ Sarah Dai, ‘China Facial Recognition Unicorn Megvii Pledges to Guard Against Weaponization of AI on Road to IPO’ (South China Morning Post, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/3024395/china-facial-recognition-unicorn-megvii-pledges-guard-against.

⁶² ‘Top 10 Open Innovation Platforms for Next Generation AI’ (China Daily, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201910/11/WS5d9fb341a310cf3e3556fca0.html.

⁶³ ‘Wang Yi: China proposes global Data Security Initiative’ (CGTN, 2020), accessed November 2, 2022, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-08/Wang-Yi-China-proposes-global-data-security-initiative-TBYqRj0kYo/index.html.

⁶⁴ Interview with representatives of Chinese AI companies (Shenzhen, 24 July 2019). See also, Li Xia, ‘Jiyu dashuju de suanfa shashu xianxiang de zhengce yingdui cuoshi [Policy Responses to the Phenomenon of Algorithm Killing Based on Big Data]’, Zhongguo keji luntan [China Science and Technology Forum] (1), (2019), p. 3.

⁶⁵ ÓhÉigeartaigh and others (n 6) 578.

⁶⁶ Sophie You and Emilia Jin, ‘China Removes Didi from App Stores: What We Learned from the Case and China’s Cybersecurity Regime’ (China Briefing, 2021), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-removes-didi-from-app-stores-lessons-learned-chinas-cybersecurity-regime/.

⁶⁷ ‘Personal Information Protection Law Implementation, How to Use This Law? A Number of Experts Say So’, Tencent, 11 November 2021, https://new.qq.com/omn/20211125/20211125A02K3B00.html.

⁶⁸ Interview with representatives of Chinese AI companies (Shenzhen, 24 July 2019).

⁶⁹ Lu Zhian, ‘Facial Recognition App a Double-Edged Sword’ (China Daily, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/global/2019-09/06/content_37508238.htm.

⁷⁰ ibid.

⁷¹ They included Li Yanhong, Baidu’s chief executive; Ma Huateng, Tencent’s chairman; Zhang Jindong, Suning’s chairman; Wang Xiaochuan, Sogou’s chief executive; and Zhou Hongyi, Qihoo 360 Technology’s chairman. See Qian Tongxin, ‘China Pushes for Data Protection Legislation’ (Yicai Global, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-pushes-for-data-protection-legislation.

⁷² Since 2019, MOST has granted 15 AI innovative development pilot zones, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hangzhou, with another 5 to be set up by 2023. In the same year, MOST set up a ‘national team’ that involves 10 AI tech champions to lead the development of open innovation platforms for AI-related basic theory, core technologies, and software and hardware support systems, products, and applications.

⁷³ Wenger (n 8) 72–73.

⁷⁴ Li Mi, ‘China Focus: China Addresses Building Ethical AI’ (Xinhua, 2019), accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.sohu.com/a/320823571_505819.

⁷⁵ Zhang Zhihao, ‘Principles Set to Regulate AI Research, Applications’ (China Daily, 2019), accessed November 3, 2022, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201906/18/WS5d08234ea3103dbf14328bb9.html.

⁷⁶ Interview with Tencent representatives (Beijing, 11 August 2021).

⁷⁷ Xue Lan and Jia Kai, ‘Rengongzhineng lunli wenti yu anquan fengxian zhili de quanqiu bijiao yu zhongguo shijian [A Global Comparison of Ethical Issues and AI’s Safety Risks Management and Chinese Practices]’, Gonggong guanli ping lun [Public Administration Review] (1), (2021), p. 122.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council [852123]; National Social Science Fund of China [21CGJ021].