China’s Regulators Take Aim at “AI Boyfriends”

In the first weeks of July, a wave of sad posts rolled through Chinese social media, as people lamented friends and lovers they were about to lose. “He has become a bond in my life, rooted deep in my heart, my spiritual pillar,” one user of Bytedance’s Douboa wrote, according to the Taipei Times. “I really felt like I couldn’t go on living,” another woman, a 19-year-old student, told a journalist for Malaysia’s The Star. The emotions were real but the lost companions were not. They were generative AI chatbots that imitate people. Their users relied on them for advice, solace, support and, some