artificial intelligence

artificial-intelligence

China’s Short-Drama Boom Calls for a New AI Crew

Timely reports on issues and events from across China. Drawing on a vast range of sources, these succinct articles provide insights into the significance of each issue in a wider context.

NEWS

AI is shrinking crews and production times while opening film jobs to workers trained in fields far beyond cinema.

Fan Yiying

At World AI Forum, Four Signs China’s AI Industry Is Growing Up

Contributions from individuals with unique perspectives to share. Hear from everyone, from experts and commentators to those whose voices are often marginalized.

VOICES & OPINION

This year, China’s biggest AI conference showed an industry racing to cut computing costs, put AI agents to work, manage new risks, and find business models that can last.

Cai Yiwen

China Bans AI Romantic Partners, Virtual Relatives for Minors

The country’s first regulations on AI companion services also set new limits on chatbots designed to simulate emotional bonds with users.

Chen Yiru

Chinese Tech Firms Pitch AI Agents as the Future of Smartphones

At Shanghai’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference, tech companies showcased phones designed to understand user intent and coordinate tasks across services.

Li Xin

China-Proposed Global AI Organization Launched at WAIC

The organization, established on the eve of the opening of China’s annual World AI Conference, will advance international cooperation on how AI is developed and used.

China’s AI Summer Camps Tap Into Parents’ Worries

As parents push to equip their children with AI skills, companies seeking to exploit their anxieties around the new technology are exaggerating claims about what they can teach their children.

Xiao Chuhan

The Chinese Voice Actor Forced to Prove He’s Human

Articles that cut to the core of contemporary China. In-depth, informed, and carefully crafted, every piece is carried by the voices of the story’s participants.

FEATURES

AI has made Shen Anyu’s voice cheap to copy and nearly impossible to control, drawing him and his wife into a widening fight over income, identity and ownership.

We Need to Talk About AI: China’s Therapists Lose Patients to Tech

Translations, cross-publications, and collaborative projects from Sixth Tone’s external partners. 

SIXTH TONE ×

As more Chinese turn to AI tools for counseling, mental health professionals warn that the technology could be making people worse.

White Night Workshop

In the Age of AI, Is Chinese Opera Being Revived or Reduced?

As AI tools turn Chinese opera into data, the art form is finding new audiences while risking the loss of what made it unique.

Gong Yan

Famed Chinese Sci-Fi Writer Sparks Debate Over AI-Written Books

Hao Jingfang admitted that she had used AI to produce her children’s science fiction series.

Jiang Xinyi

Bot for Profit: Can China’s Top AI App Convince Users to Pay?

China’s most popular chatbot has announced new subscription plans, marking a turning point for the country’s AI industry as companies look to convert massive user bases into revenue.

Li Rongxuan

Locked Out of China’s AI Boom, Graduates Turn to Bootcamps

With new graduates facing a crowded job market, AI bootcamps are offering three-month courses designed to turn newcomers into junior AI workers.

Mao Rui

China’s Lifelike Emotional Companion Bots Go on Sale

The life-size robot is billed as an emotional companion, employing both affective AI and encrypted memory storage.

Keep Drawing Your 0.5-Yuan Masterpieces, Kid

In a world still in awe of artificial intelligence, the best power we have is our urge to create and connect.

Wu Haiyun

AI Hallucinates Flight Refund, Sparking Memes in China

A chat log in which an AI assistant confidently presented a user with numerous inaccuracies has inspired a wave of AI hallucination spoofs, a growing trend in the country.

Flying Solo: The Rise of China’s One-Person Companies

Thanks to AI, a new form of solo entrepreneurship has taken root, granting individuals the ability to perform tasks that once required many workers.

China’s Top Phone Companies Launch Packages Covering AI Use

The plans offer millions of AI tokens per person for a fixed monthly price. Insiders say the packages’ main customers are government entities and state-owned enterprises.

Handmade: Two Chinese Productions Go Viral for Skipping AI

The productions, made by two amateur teams using their own savings, have garnered hundreds of millions of views on domestic video platforms.

AI Took His Job. A Chinese Court Awarded Him $38,000.

After his company asked him to accept a pay cut and demotion following an AI rollout, a fintech worker sued — and won.

When Big Tech Needed Mothers in Rural China to Train AI

China’s rural data-labeling centers relied on mothers who could work, care for children and hold households in place all at once. Now many of those same women are being judged unfit for the future of AI.