Alibaba Policy Lead: China at Forefront of AI Governance Amid 'Common Ignorance'

In a panel discussion at the inaugural Hong Kong Global AI Governance Conference at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Saturday, Alibaba Group Holding policy lead Fu Hongyu said that China was now at the front lines of global efforts to introduce guardrails surrounding the fast-changing technology.

“We are in a dilemma that can be called common ignorance,” he said. “We do not know what is going on and where the technology is going.”

With Chinese models widely considered to be around three to six months behind their US counterparts, Beijing’s position on AI governance had always been the need to balance AI development and safety, said Fu, director of AI governance at Alibaba’s research institute, AliResearch. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.