China likely to ditch unified AI legislation due to ‘considerable disagreement’, timing

Lack of consensus between industry and academics is holding up efforts to craft comprehensive national rules to govern AI, experts say

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A lack of consensus and poor timing have hindered progress on achieving a unified AI legal strategy in China, according to experts. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:00pm, 17 Jul 2024

China is likely to set aside efforts to produce unified national artificial intelligence legislation because of “considerable disagreement” between industry and academics, according to a legal expert involved in discussions to draft the law.

“Currently, China may plan to abandon drafting such a law … mainly because the opinions are so divided and there is still considerable disagreement within both the industry and academic communities,” said Zheng Ge, a professor of public law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

In addition to the disagreement, “the vast majority of experts believe the timing to craft unified national AI legislation may not yet be mature since the technology is evolving so rapidly”, Zheng said.

Zheng made the remarks last Friday in Beijing on the sidelines of the Confucius and Aristotle Symposium on Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges, which was jointly hosted by the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the Mencius Foundation.

China has been drawing up its own AI legislation and a draft of a unified law was submitted for review to the country’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, according to its annual legislative work plan made public in May.

But Zheng said the submission was only at a very early stage and there was no timetable for the draft, which suggested a lack of progress.