China targets AI companion chatbots as birth rates crisis deepens

China has recently imposed restrictions on companion chatbots, aiming to protect people from harms of virtual romance and AI companionship.

Beijing on Wednesday enacted strict rules forbidding chatbots designed for companionship from encouraging users to form deep emotional dependencies. Moreover, virtual relationships between chatbots and minors would be banned.

If the company finds any sign of emotional crisis and distress, they must alert emergency contacts and undergo mandatory government evaluation prior to public release. The government authorities have the power to shut down any AI service they consider unsafe for people.

According to the experts, the primary objective of this strict regulation is to protect young people from unchecked AI harms. But there is another motive: to boost China’s declining birth rates.

Matt Sheehan, who studies Chinese AI at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “They don’t like the idea of a large portion of their population being in deep emotional relationships with chatbots that could take them out of the marriage market, that could have negative psychological impacts on them, that could lead to addiction, dependency and a whole bunch of other social ills.”

In recent years, China is facing a shrinking population and record-low birth rates. The county’s birth rate fell to 5.63 per 1,000 people, record-breaking low since 1949.

The regulators fear that virtual companionship will discourage people from entering marriage and having babies. Moreover, AI romance also poses a threat to traditional social structures, including family, fertility and employment.

Major Chinese tech firms, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have already started suspending certain chatbot features to comply with these rules.

“They want to encourage people to be in actual, real-world relationships. Could we imagine a future where, three or four years from now, 15 million Chinese women say that their partner is a chatbot, and therefore they’re not having kids?” Sheehan said.