ChatGPT Effect: Part 2, ChatGPT in China
Firstly, there’s something that needs to be clarified.
When searching “China block ChatGPT” on Google, a lot of well-known media outlets describe it as “Officials fear American chatbot will …“ or “China blocked ChatGPT…”, all reports seem to be sensationalizing “China blocked openAI’s services proactively”.
Chinese users have been able to access OpenAI’s website and registration page since the launch of ChatGPT until now.
1. openAI doesn’t support Chinese users registering
After submitted email, and continue to verify email address, openAI fed back “Oops!”
Change the IP address to circumvent blockers. Although the “verify email address” step was successful, another obstacle has arisen: “verify phone number” does not support China.
2. WeChat took down some applications which provide ChatGPT service to users on his platform “Mini Programs”
- WeChat a social app that has over 1.3 billion users worldwide.
- ChatGPT is an emerging and unknown technology that is growing too fast in a short time, it can be cool or terrifying.
How to ensure this technology isn’t abused?
- openAI has launched usage policies that include a list of disallowed usage.
- Some education departments block ChatGPT on school devices, networks. And cybercriminals starting to use ChatGPT… etc.
Not just for ChatGPT, but also for Chinese chatbots. In the meantime, WeChat also ban the Chinese ChatGPT-style application – YuanYu on Jan 2023. And Fudan University closed its Chatbot – MOSS online only in three days.
It’s a responsibility to protect the general public users in this way before these applications are mature and stable and have sound laws and regulations.
However, some Chinese users have still found ways to access ChatGPT.
ChatGPT in China
1. Google Trends
Search “ChatGPT” on Google Trends with the setting:
- worldwide
- From 2022-11-30 to 2023-02-28 (ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022)
- All categories
- Web search
Interest by region，China ranks Top1 with the value 100. Interest by city, Shanghai and Shenzhen, both cities in China, rank Top1 and Top2.
It’s interesting that Google search is unavailable in China, but users still access it to search for ‘ChatGPT’ in almost 100% of their queries.
Google Trend: Interest by region
See in which location your term was most popular during the specified time frame. Values are calculated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location, a value of 50 indicates a location which is half as popular. A value of 0 indicates a location where there was not enough data for this term.
Note: A higher value means a higher proportion of all queries, not a higher absolute query count. So a tiny country where 80% of the queries are for ‘bananas’ will get twice the score of a giant country where only 40% of the queries are for ‘bananas’.
2. Search Index in China
Data is collected from web search engines and social apps in China. All of these sources are referred to as “Search Index,” which track user activity and interests, such as those actively searching for or expressing interest in ChatGPT and related content.
Platform:
- Baidu, web search engine
- Douyin, the TikTok application for China
- WeChat, Social App
Note: Weibo’s data platform is updating, there no Weibo Index can be caught.
Time range: 2022-11-15 to 2023-02-28 (before 2022-11-15, there are no data)
Search Terms:
- priority keyword: ChatGPT, openAI
- new concept: AIGC(Artificial Intelligence Generated Content), as ChatGPT goes viral, AIGC becomes a heated word.
- Chinese chatbot: ChatGPT-style applications in China (ChatGPT Effect: Part 1, Tech Giants’ Response), such like moss, ChatJD…etc.
NOTE: Some keywords may not be indexed by platforms or may be indexed later, which could result in missing data.
| Search term | English Name | Company | Type | Baidu Indexed | WeChat Indexed | Douyin Indexed |
| ChatGPT | openAI | Chatbot | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| openAI | openAI | Company | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| AIGC | / | Term, AI Generated Content | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | |
| 文心一言 | Ernie Bot | Baidu | Chatbot | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| moss | Fudan University | Chatbot | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| bing | Microsoft | web search engine | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Edge | Microsoft | Browser | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| 华为+盘古 | PanGu | Huawei | Chatbot | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 混元助手 | HunyuanAide | Tencent | Chatbot | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| 元语 | ChatYuan | YUANYU | Chatbot | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| chatjd | JD.COM | Chatbot | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
2.1 OVERVIEW
The graph presents data on “ChatGPT” Search Index in Chinese major internet platform between Nov 2022 and Feb 2023.
There are similar trends, except for Douyin, which indexed ChatGPT’s data on its platform after February 08, 2023. Following the major steps taken by OpenAI, fluctuations occurred around the time nodes in approximately five days.
In Feb 2023, the trends are fluctuating dramatically. Referring to Part 1, Tech Giants’ Response, this is possibly because Chinese giants announced Chatbot in Feb 2023.
2.2 Baidu Index
The search index is based on the search volume of Internet users on Baidu, with keywords as the statistical objects. It scientifically analyzes and calculates the weighted sum of the search frequency of each keyword in Baidu web search.
After ChatGPT was launched, there was a small fluctuation in the first half of December, and the vast majority of users did not pay attention to it. However, in February 2023, “ChatGPT” increased dramatically, peaking on February 8th. On the same day, “Bing” and “OpenAI” also hit their peak . Before this, on February 7th, there were three official announcements: Microsoft announced new versions of Bing and Edge, Baidu introduced its chatbot “文言一心” (Ernie Bot), and 360 announced that it would be launching a ChatGPT-style demo. This suggests that the actions of well-known tech giants can draw users’ attention.
AIGC(Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) has received tremendous attention in February 2023 , and the media is buzzing about how China can catch up to ChatGPT.
“文言一心” (Ernie Bot) hits its peak from zero on the day when Baidu introduced it. MOSS is well-known as an AI in the hit movie “The Wandering Earth 2”, it keeps plateaus before Fudan University launched the chatbot with the same name. “华为+盘古” (Huawei+PanGu) is an internal AI project without an official announcement, and its data is anomalous, perhaps affected by “PanGu,” a god name that can be used in games and other contexts.
Related Queries of “ChatGPT” , 2023/02/06~2023/02/12 (the sharp fluctuation)
Users searching for ”ChatGPT“ also searched for these queries:
- ChatGPT Official website
- How to download ChatGPT
- How to register for ChatGPT
- What is ChatGPT
- how to use ChatGPT in China
A lot of people don’t know ChatGPT and how to access its website.
2.3 WeChat Index
WeChat Index is a basic indicator based on keywords, there are two main calculation parameters: the popularity of keywords related content and the importance of keywords in relevant content.
On WeChat, “ChatGPT” has a sharp fluctuation in the first half of Feb 2023. “Bing”, “Edge”, and “openAI’ get the highest value on February 8th, and “ChatGPT” keeps up and hits the peak on February 8th, later than Baidu Index.
“AIGC” is different from Baidu Index. It has several fluctuations, possibly because AI ART, such as Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, are spreading on this platform.
“ChatJD” and “MOSS” hit their peak on the day when official announcements came out, but “文言一心” (Ernie Bot) get the highest value later than officially introduced. At the end of February, according to the media report, Tencent had a similar chatbot “混元助手”(HunyuanAide) in developing, this keyword is rocketing.
YuanYU was a chatbot startup that launched and closed its services quickly on the Mini Program platform of WeChat. It is occasionally mentioned because it claimed to be the Chinese version of ChatGPT.
2.4 Douyin Topic Index
Search index: Measures the search popularity of the keyword in Douyin. The search index of the keyword is obtained by weighted summation of data such as the search volume of keywords and related content. The search index is not equal to the actual search volume.
“ChatGPT” was indexed with the highest value on Feb 8, 2023, and then went down before leaping again. “OpenAI” was indexed earlier than “ChatGPT” on Dec 1, 2022, which was the day after OpenAI launched ChatGPT. “OpenAI” experienced sharp fluctuations in the first half of December 2022, hitting its peak on Dec 9, 2022. It then went down and plateaued in January 2023, but started fluctuating again in February 2023.
PanGu (盘古) experienced a sharp fluctuation on January 19, 2023, due to the launch of a new skin for the mobile game called Champion of PanGu (盘古). Before February 20, 2023, the search keyword “MOSS” referred to the AI in the hit movie “The Wandering Earth 2”. However, on February 21, 2023, the trend increased due to Fudan University’s apology regarding their chatbot named “MOSS”.
On the Douyin platform, “Yuanyu” (元语) refers to a primary school curriculum material before February 7, 2023. However, starting from February 7, 2023, short-form videos are being created to introduce Chinese chatbots, which are also referred to as “Yuanyu” (元语). This was especially noticeable on February 10, 2023.
Summary
ChatGPT gains extensive attention in China on Feb 2023. Especially after Feb 7, 2023, when Chinese tech giants, such as Baidu, announced joining this AI race, spurs Chinese interest.