In a context of low birth in the country, China’s Cyberspace Administration and other government agencies have taken steps to reduce “emotional dependence” and impact on interpersonal relationships of users using artificial intelligence tools.
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21/07/2026
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A China has presented new measures to prevent the creation of romantic partners in Artificial Intelligence, with the new rules coming into force last week on July 15.
Together with four other government agencies, China's Cyberspace Administration now wants to prevent the artificial intelligence tools from stopping “overserving users, inducing emotional dependence or addiction and harming actual interpersonal relationships of users”.
As noted by The Wall Street Journal, these measures also include a ban on virtual relations with underage users. The intention is to prevent large Chinese technology companies – such as Tencent, Alibaba or ByteDance – from preventing users from creating their own romantic partners in Artificial Intelligence with the ability to express human emotions.
The publication notes that these measures may also apply to intelligence chat boats More traditional artificial, actively regulating how these tools respond to interactions with humans.
These new measures arise at a time when the birth rate in the country has decreased sharply, with the Chinese government wanting to counter the trend by imposing limits on Artificial Intelligence features.
With the entry into force of these measures, new Artificial Intelligence features that can be seen as virtual partners must now be assessed by the government before being publicly launched. If they are identified as potential threats, they will be terminated.
“ChatGPT is silencing an entire generation”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman invited American writer and journalist Dave Eggers to speak to the company’s employees and, faithful to what has been going on, the author has not missed the opportunity to weave harsh criticism of Artificial Intelligence as technology.
Eggers, known mainly for the 2013 novel “The Circle” where he criticizes the technology industry, stated that the texts generated by ChatGPT, the result is a “senseless collage” – arguing that no one will be interested in reading books created with Artificial Intelligence.
Told Eggers to Financial Times that these criticisms led Altman to invite him to a small lecture at OpenAI, an opportunity he took to affirm that Artificial Intelligence would be devastating for a whole generation of young people.
“ The effect that ChatGPT is having on educators' lives is catastrophic” declared Eggers. “Intentional or not, they made the life of all teachers infinitely more difficult than it was two years ago. Think about it. If students are using [ChatGPT] to write, which is a great tragedy, they will never learn to write. And their voice will be stolen. You will never have the ability to communicate your truths and tell your own stories. And that is to silence one or two entire generations”.