This is clearly (at least to the Western sensibilities) a vast government overreach into private life, but can we marvel for a second at a company employing AI to curb addictive behavior towards its product? I definitely don't agree with the government mandates dictating how and when you can play video games, but it is kind of incredible to see a company use AI for something other than encouraging addictive behavior like many US tech companies do.
> employing AI to curb addictive behavior towards its product
Not out of goodwill.
Tencent profits hugely from gaming addiction, they know it and exploit it to whatever extent they could without drawing serious ire. They use their near monopoly on personal communications (WeChat, QQ) and huge market share on social media (WeChat), video streaming (Tencent Video) and other forms of media to subtly and not-so-subtly push their cash cow games, Honor of Kings being the prime example. I won’t list the shady tactics I’ve heard, which you can hear from I suppose any young urban-dwelling person in China.
They are a big part of the problem in the first place.
When I spend too much time on TikTok (about an hour I think), it slips in a video of a relatable young person saying something like “hold on! You’ve been scrolling for way too long now!…” or alternatively, “I understand it’s easy to keep watching videos, and trust me I’ve been there before, but those videos will still be there tomorrow. So go get some extra sleep, turn your phone off, do yourself that favor and have a great night”.
The experience is probably the digital equivalent of hitting rock bottom, but it does shame me into stopping and is probably good for my mental health overall.
I can’t imagine a western company doing that for their customers. Can you imagine Facebook actively trying to get you to spend less time on their platform? The closest is Netflix “are you still there?” but they’re just trying to save bandwidth.
This is why there is support for this law in China. The law places the responsibility to not provide online gaming service to minors between 10pm and 8 am. The law doesn't criminalizes the actual consumer of the content. It doesn't ask Tencent to catch minors playing games on behalf of law enforcement. That would be a police state. 1) Capital always seeks more profits. And companies like Tencent are controlled by capital. So they will always use the most effective way to earn more money. That includes making content more addictive. 2) Hence, this law is seen as a leash on the companies themselves to not cause more online gaming addiction. 3) the nature of this law is more like alcohol and cigar ban on minors. Where the companies and sellers of alcohol and cigar is held liable for selling to minors. 4) In this specific use case, privacy is not necessary sacrificed. All the system needs to do is make sure the current user is the user who says they are. Basically, its a IPhone Face ID style system. You can store all the biometric data on device. It doesn't need to go to some server.
It's like putting a warning about gambling addiction on the wall of a casino. It doesn't accomplish anything, and it's just there to make the company look better and foist responsibility onto their victims.
Is it? The incredible thing would be if they used AI for something better than addictive behavior. Doing it for something worse is the expected course of action.
Companies like tencent are very different to private companies in the West - and will much more readily do what the Chinese government tells them to do. Private companies in the west will collaborate with the government at all, but they complain more and keep it secret.
This move won’t be done from the kindness of their heart and to get kids to reduce gaming consumption - it will be a move they have been instructed to do from the Chinese government.
These companies can’t really push back either - if you want an example see what happened to Jack Ma.
