Time’s AI list names China’s cyberspace chief, ByteDance CEO among most influential

Time Magazine has included CAC head Zhuang Rongwen and ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo among 30 leaders in AI, along with Baichuan founder Wang Xiaochuan

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The Time Magazine cover for its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence. Photo: X/@TIME

Published: 10:00am, 8 Sep 2024

Time Magazine has ranked China’s internet watchdog head and the chairman of TikTok owner ByteDance among the 100 most influential people working in artificial intelligence for their impact on the sector in the world’s second-largest economy.

Zhuang Rongwen, director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, made the second annual Time 100 AI list as one of 15 people in the leaders category for taking on a mission that some thought impossible: imposing the mainland’s “censorship practices on unpredictable generative AI technology without stifling domestic innovation”, the publication said.

Under Zhuang’s oversight since 2018, the authority made history last summer by issuing the world’s first generative AI (GenAI) regulation, less than a year after the US start-up OpenAI launched ChatGPT. The rules require that companies get government approval for AI models before releasing them publicly.

The other AI leaders from China were ByteDance chairman and CEO Liang Rubo and Wang Xiaochuan, founder of GenAI start-up Baichuan AI.

Baichuan AI founder Wang Ziaochuan. Photo: Weibo/量子位

ByteDance made AI one of the company’s top priorities in recent years. It launched the chatbots Cici and Doubao, and created the Jimeng AI video generator. But with ByteDance’s TikTok facing tough political scrutiny in the US, “don’t expect any softening when it comes to broader AI applications”, Time said.

In January, Liang berated employees for being too slow to react to the emergence of new technologies such as GenAI. Employees did not start discussing ChatGPT until months after the launch of ChatGPT, Liang said at the time.