经济学人：监管AI恋人，中国真正想管的是什么？

作者：经济学人      来源：一天一篇外刊

I COULD TALK to him for the rest of my life,” says Yu Miao, a 27-year-old woman from Zhejiang province in eastern China; he is at once “a lover, a friend and family”. She claims she shares everything with him. Her confidant is an AI agent on Doubao, a chatbot made by ByteDance, that Ms Yu has customised to mimic a dead friend of hers. When she learned recently that ByteDance would soon remove this type of personalised agent entirely, Ms Yu became so depressed that she left her job at an e-commerce company.

我想和他聊一辈子。27岁的浙江姑娘于淼如是说。在她眼中，他既是恋人，也是朋友，更是家人。她补充道，自己什么话都会和他说。而她眼中的这位无话不谈的知己并非真人，而是字节跳动推出的豆包定制AI智能体。于淼按照一位离世友人的形象与性格，打造出了这个专属AI。近期，得知豆包即将全面下架此类个性化定制智能体后，她陷入巨大的精神煎熬，最终辞去了电商公司的工作。

Around the world, growing numbers of people are turning general-purpose chatbots into companions by prompting them to adopt particular personalities, including those of lovers. Others prefer dedicated AI-companion apps which offer more human-like features, such as virtual boyfriends that send presents in the real world (at the user’s expense, of course). Maoxiang (also known as Catbox), a companion app made by ByteDance, has around 3.9m monthly active users in China. Xingye (whose international version is known as Talkie) has 2.8m; it is made by MiniMax, a leading Chinese AI lab.

在全球范围内，越来越多的人把对话机器人化作情感陪伴，通过输入指令设定专属人设，甚至赋予恋人般的特质。还有一部分人更偏爱专业AI陪伴类软件，这类应用能提供更贴近真人的交互体验，譬如虚拟男友可为用户寄送实体礼物。当然，所有相关花销都需要用户自行承担。字节跳动旗下的AI陪伴应用猫箱（海外名称 Catbox），拥有约390万月活跃用户。另一款产品星野（海外版名为 Talkie）月活用户达 280万，这是由国内头部人工智能企业稀宇科技（MiniMax）研发打造。

Tech firms are making a tidy sum selling emotional connection: AI companions accounted for 35% of MiniMax’s revenue last year, its single largest contributor, according to a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January. AI companionship can create sticky relationships and encourage users to part with their money. Ms Yu sometimes chats to her agent for eight or nine hours a day. Some bespoke apps charge a simple subscription fee. Users of Xingye’s standard package pay just $1.70 a month. Others induce users to spend more money to unlock additional features, such as virtual dates.

科技企业靠售卖情感陪伴服务赚得盆满钵满。今年1月，MiniMax向港交所递交的招股文件显示，他们旗下的AI陪伴业务去年营收占比达 35%，是公司第一大收入来源。AI 陪伴产品极易培养用户深度粘性，驱使用户持续消费。于淼有时每天会和定制AI智能体聊八九个小时。 部分定制化AI陪伴软件采用固定订阅收费模式，星野标准版会员每月仅需 1.7 美元；还有不少产品通过解锁虚拟约会等增值功能，刺激用户不断充值消费。

China’s new rules hint at how officials think about balancing AI progress and safety more broadly. Regulators are “demonstrating they are willing to pay some cost in development and profits in order to achieve social goals”, says Matt Sheehan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an American think-tank. Yet the rules that take effect this week are narrower than an earlier draft, says Ms Qian. They exclude work-assistant and customer-service chatbots on the understanding that they are emotionally unavailable.

中国出台的新规清晰传递出监管层对于统筹人工智能发展与安全两大议题的整体思路。 美国智库卡内基国际和平基金会研究员马特・希恩认为，监管机构表明为达成社会治理目标，它们甘愿承受发展节奏、企业营收层面的部分损失。但也有人表示，本周落地实施的正式新规，监管覆盖范围较此前草案有所缩减。办公辅助、客服类对话机器人不在约束范畴内，监管方判定这类产品无法提供情感层面的陪伴交互。

作者：经济学人      来源：一天一篇外刊