For decades, security researchers warned about techniques for hijacking virtualization software. Now one group has put them into practice. From a report: For decades, virtualization software has offered a way to vastly multiply computers' efficiency, hosting entire collections of computers as "virtual machines" on just one physical machine. And for almost as long, security researchers have warned about the potential dark side of that technology: theoretical "hyperjacking" and "Blue Pill" attacks, where hackers hijack virtualization to spy on and manipulate virtual machines, with potentially no way for a targeted computer to detect the intrusion. That insidious spying has finally jumped from research papers to reality with warnings that one mysterious team of hackers has carried out a spree of "hyperjacking" attacks in the wild.

Today, Google-owned security firm Mandiant and virtualization firm VMware jointly published warnings that a sophisticated hacker group has been installing backdoors in VMware's virtualization software on multiple targets' networks as part of an apparent espionage campaign. By planting their own code in victims' so-called hypervisors --VMware software that runs on a physical computer to manage all the virtual machines it hosts -- the hackers were able to invisibly watch and run commands on the computers those hypervisors oversee. And because the malicious code targets the hypervisor on the physical machine rather than the victim's virtual machines, the hackers' trick multiplies their access and evades nearly all traditional security measures designed to monitor those target machines for signs of foul play.

"The idea that you can compromise one machine and from there have the ability to control virtual machines en masse is huge," says Mandiant consultant Alex Marvi. And even closely watching the processes of a target virtual machine, he says, an observer would in many cases see only "side effects" of the intrusion, given that the malware carrying out that spying had infected a part of the system entirely outside its operating system. Mandiant discovered the hackers earlier this year and brought their techniques to VMware's attention. Researchers say they've seen the group carry out their virtualization hacking -- a technique historically dubbed hyperjacking in a reference to "hypervisor hijacking" -- in fewer than 10 victims' networks across North America and Asia. Mandiant notes that the hackers, which haven't been identified as any known group, appear to be tied to China.

North Korea has begun a mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign in its border areas, according to South Korea's spy agency, becoming one of the world's final countries to embark on such a national rollout. From a report: North Korea and Eritrea, in east Africa, were the only remaining countries that hadn't started widespread vaccination distribution, the World Health Organization has said. After rejecting millions of doses from other countries last year, North Korea admitted to its first nationwide Covid-19 outbreak in May and declared victory in August. Then, earlier this month, leader Kim Jong Un said Covid-19 vaccines would be distributed starting in November. He cited findings from the country's antiepidemic experts that North Koreans who contracted Covid-19 in May and June would experience a decline in their antibody response starting in October.

During a Wednesday briefing to South Korean lawmakers, Seoul's spy agency said North Korea had begun distributing vaccines, though it didn't specify in which border areas. The lawmakers who were briefed didn't say where the vaccines had come from or when they were first distributed. Repeated lockdowns suggest North Korea hasn't eradicated the virus, the spy agency told lawmakers. Considering some recent resumption of flights and train operations between China and North Korea, it is most likely that China is supplying the vaccines, said Hong Min, of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank.

More electric cars will be sold in China this year than in the rest of the world combined, as its domestic market accelerates ahead of the global competition. From a report: This year, a quarter of all new cars purchased in China will be an all-electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid. By some estimates, more than 300 Chinese companies are making E.V.s, ranging from discount offerings below $5,000 to high-end models that rival Tesla and German automakers. There are roughly four million charging units in the country, double the number from a year ago, with more coming. While other E.V. markets are still heavily dependent on subsidies and financial incentives, China has entered a new phase: Consumers are weighing the features and prices of electric vehicles against gas-powered cars without much consideration of state support. The United States is far behind. This year, the country passed a key threshold of E.V.s accounting for 5 percent of new car sales. China passed that level in 2018.

Even new U.S. incentives have raised questions about how effective they will be in addressing mitigating factors for electric cars, such as long wait lists, limited supplies and high prices. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, passed last month, included a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles with conditions on where the cars are manufactured and where batteries are sourced. Automakers complained that the credit did not apply to many current E.V. models, and that the sourcing requirements could increase the cost of building an E.V. It took China more than a decade of subsidies, long-term investments and infrastructure spending to lay the foundation for its electric vehicle market to start standing on its own. Tu Le, a managing director of the Beijing-based consultancy Sino Auto Insights, said competition and dynamism were now driving the Chinese market, not government subsidies. "We have reached a point in China where we're competing on price. We're competing on features. So it's not a subsidy thing," Mr. Le said. "The market is taking over."

U.S. lawmakers and TikTok are hammering out a plan, under which the short-form video app would make changes to its data security and governance without requiring its parent firm, China's ByteDance to sell it, the New York Times reported on Monday. Reuters reports: TikTok and the Biden administration have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns but are still deciding on a potential agreement, the Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on the report but said the app was confident about being able to "fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns." TikTok's parent company ByteDance was ordered to divest the company more than two years ago over fears that U.S. user data could be passed on to China's communist government.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Ever since American manufacturing entered a long stretch of automation and outsourcing in the late 1970s, every recession has led to the loss of factory jobs that never returned. But the recovery from the pandemic recession has been different: American manufacturers have now added enough jobs to regain all that they shed -- and then some. The resurgence has not been driven by companies bringing back factory jobs that had moved overseas, nor by the brawny industrial sectors and regions often evoked by President Biden, former President Donald J. Trump and other champions of manufacturing. Instead, the engines in this recovery include pharmaceutical plants, craft breweries and ice-cream makers. The newly created jobs are more likely to be located in the Mountain West and the Southeast than in the classic industrial strongholds of the Great Lakes.

American manufacturers cut roughly 1.36 million jobs from February to April of 2020, as Covid-19 shut down much of the economy. As of August this year, manufacturers had added back about 1.43 million jobs, a net gain of 67,000 workers above pre pandemic levels. Data suggest that the rebound is largely a product of the unique circumstances of the pandemic recession and recovery. Covid-19 crimped global supply chains, making domestic manufacturing more attractive to some companies. Federal stimulus spending helped to power a shift in Americans' buying habits away from services like travel and restaurants and toward goods like cars and sofas, helping domestic factory production -- and with it, job growth -- to bounce back much faster than it did in the previous two recessions.

In recessions over the last half century, factories have typically laid off a greater share of workers than other employers in the economy, and they have been slower to add jobs back in recoveries. Often, companies have used those economic inflection points to accelerate their pace of outsourcing jobs to foreign countries, where wages are significantly lower, and to invest in technology that replaces human workers. [...] This time was different. Factory layoffs roughly matched those in the services sector in the depth of the pandemic recession. Economists attribute that break in the trend to many U.S. manufacturers being deemed "essential" during pandemic lockdowns, and the ensuing surge in demand for their products by Americans. Manufacturing jobs quickly rebounded in the spring of 2020, then began to climb at a much faster pace than has been typical for factory job creation in recent decades. Since June 2020, under both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, factories have added more than 30,000 jobs a month. "Sectors that hemorrhaged employment in recent recessions have fared much better in this recovery," reports the NYT. They include furniture makers, textile mills, paper products companies and computer equipment makers.

"Mr. Biden has pushed a variety of legislative initiatives to boost domestic manufacturing, including direct spending on infrastructure, tax credits and other subsidies for companies like battery makers and semiconductor factories, and new federal procurement requirements that benefit manufacturers located in the United States," adds the report -- all of which could help encourage factory job growth in the coming months and years.

Furthermore, the rising tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade and technology could encourage more companies to leave China for the United States, particularly cutting-edge industries like clean energy and advanced computing.

Apple said Monday it is assembling its flagship iPhone 14 in India as the U.S. technology giant looks to shift some production away from China. CNBC reports: "The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces groundbreaking new technologies and important safety capabilities. We're excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India," the company said in a statement. Apple's main iPhone assembler, Foxconn, is manufacturing the devices at its Sriperumbudur factory on the outskirts of Chennai.

The Cupertino, California, giant has been manufacturing iPhones in India since 2017 but these were usually older models. This time with the iPhone 14, Apple is producing its latest model in India for the first time, close to the device's launch. Apple introduced the iPhone 14 earlier this month. Apple will sell India-produced phones locally but also export them to other markets globally. Customers in India will begin receiving the locally manufactured devices in the next few days. Earlier this month, JPMorgan analysts said that Apple will move 5% of its global production for the iPhone 14 to India by late 2022. The company could also make 25% of all iPhones by 2025 in India.

Beijing's long-distance bus drivers have been told to wear electronic wristbands that use emotion-sensing technology to monitor their state of mind. From a report: The move was initiated by the state-run Beijing Public Transport Holding Group, which says it is aimed at protecting public safety. But legal experts have raised privacy concerns and say the wristbands could cause bus drivers undue distress and potentially lead to discrimination. Some 1,800 wristbands were distributed to bus drivers on cross-province and highway routes on Wednesday, the official Beijing Daily reported. It is unclear how many drivers will be required to wear the devices. The report said they would be used to monitor the drivers' vital signs and emotional state in real time to improve safety.

According to a new report from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), China now has almost half of all the world's robot installations and that it is increasing its lead rapidly. Engineering.com reports: The IFR, which exists to "promote research, development, use and international co-operation in the entire field of robotics," has been reporting that China has been the world leader in implementing industrial robots for the last 8 years. We have not been paying attention. In 3 years, China has almost doubled the number of industrial robot installations. With its 243,000 robot installations in 2020, China has almost half of all the industrial robots in the world, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A majority of new industrial robots are used in electronics manufacture (for circuit boards, consumer electronics, etc.) and in automobile assembly, particularly in the surging production of electric vehicles (EVs).One must wonder why China, a country with so much cheap manual labor available, would opt for expensive robots with their special demands for tech support. China may have a giant population (1.4 billion people), but its workforce is actually decreasing, says the IFR, due to an increasing segment of its population aging and a growing competition for service jobs. China also expects a leveling off of its rural-to-urban migration. China's government is determined not to let a declining workforce cause a drop in manufacturing, and as only a centralized, authoritarian government can, it has made robotizing a national priority and has mobilized its forces.

China's latest five-year plan for the robotics industry, released in December 2021 by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), aims for nothing less than making China a world leader in robot technology and industrial automation. And it appears to be working. China went from 10 robots per ten thousand employees 10 years ago to 246 robots per ten thousand employees in 2020, the ninth best ranking in the world. To keep the robots state of the art and operational, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security introduced 18 new occupational titles in June, including "robotics engineering technician."

An increasing number of scientists and engineers of Chinese descent are giving up tenured positions at top-tier American universities to leave for China or elsewhere, in a sign of the U.S.'s fading appeal for a group that has been a driver of innovation. From a report: The trend, driven in part by what many of the scholars describe as an increasingly hostile political and racial environment, has caused the Biden administration to work with scholars of Chinese descent to address concerns. More than 1,400 U.S.-trained Chinese scientists dropped their U.S. academic or corporate affiliation for a Chinese one in 2021, a 22% jump from the previous year, according to data gathered by researchers from Princeton University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The data, to be published by the advocacy group Asian American Scholar Forum on Friday, is based on changes to the addresses listed under authors' names in academic journals.

Chinese scientists trained in the U.S. have returned to China in increasing numbers over the past two decades as the country has grown more affluent and gained stature as a center of scientific research. In the past decade, China has tried to recruit top researchers through talent programs, but historically the majority elected to stay in the U.S. Departures from the U.S. rose sharply starting in 2020, however, when the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with an increase in criminal cases filed against academics under the China Initiative, a Trump-era Justice Department program intended to counter national security threats from China. President Biden's Justice Department said it would stop pursuing new cases under the China Initiative in February, following a series of failed prosecutions and complaints of racial profiling, but some scientists of Chinese descent said they still feel as though suspicions are being directed toward them and fear that will continue as long as relations between the U.S. and China remain tense.

A U.S. intelligence agency gained access to China's telecommunications network after hacking a university, Chinese state media claimed Thursday. CNBC reports: The U.S. National Security Agency used phishing -- a hacking technique where a malicious link is included in an email -- to gain access to the government funded Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Global Times alleged, citing an unnamed source. American hackers stole "core technology data including key network equipment configuration, network management data, and core operational data," and other files, according to the Global Times. As part of the NSA's hack, the agency infiltrated Chinese telecommunications operators so that the U.S. could "control the country's infrastructure," the Global Times alleged. The Global Times, citing its unnamed source, reported that more details about the attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University will be released soon. China first disclosed the alleged attack on the Northwestern Polytechnical University earlier this month. "The agency also accused the U.S. of engaging in 'tens of thousands' of cyberattacks on Chinese targets," adds CNBC.

A cache of nearly 160,000 files from Russia's powerful internet regulator provides a rare glimpse inside Vladimir V. Putin's digital crackdown. The New York Times: Four days into the war in Ukraine, Russia's expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus was already hard at work. Roughly 800 miles east of Moscow, authorities in the Republic of Bashkortostan, one of Russia's 85 regions, were busy tabulating the mood of comments in social media messages. They marked down YouTube posts that they said criticized the Russian government. They noted the reaction to a local protest. Then they compiled their findings. One report about the "destabilization of Russian society" pointed to an editorial from a news site deemed "oppositional" to the government that said President Vladimir V. Putin was pursuing his own self-interest by invading Ukraine. A dossier elsewhere on file detailed who owned the site and where they lived. Another Feb. 28 dispatch, titled "Presence of Protest Moods," warned that some had expressed support for demonstrators and "spoke about the need to stop the war." The report was among nearly 160,000 records from the Bashkortostan office of Russia's powerful internet regulator, Roskomnadzor.

Together the documents detail the inner workings of a critical facet of Mr. Putin's surveillance and censorship system, which his government uses to find and track opponents, squash dissent and suppress independent information even in the country's furthest reaches. The leak of the agency's documents "is just like a small keyhole look into the actual scale of the censorship and internet surveillance in Russia," said Leonid Volkov, who is named in the records and is the chief of staff for the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. "It's much bigger," he said. Roskomnadzor's activities have catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression. Since the agency was established in 2008, Mr. Putin has turned it into an essential lever to tighten his grip on power as he has transformed Russia into an even more authoritarian state. The internet regulator is part of a larger tech apparatus that Mr. Putin has built over the years, which also includes a domestic spying system that intercepts phone calls and internet traffic, online disinformation campaigns and the hacking of other nations' government systems. The agency's role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records.

It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as "pro-government," "anti-government" or "apolitical." Roskomnadzor has also worked to unmask and surveil people behind anti-government accounts and provided detailed information on critics' online activities to security agencies, according to the documents. That has supplemented real-world actions, with those surveilled coming under attack for speaking out online. Some have then been arrested by the police and held for months. Others have fled Russia for fear of prosecution. The files reveal a particular obsession with Mr. Navalny and show what happens when the weight of Russia's security state is placed on one target. The system is built to control outbursts like the one this week, when protesters across Russia rallied against a new policy that would press roughly 300,000 people into military service for the war in Ukraine. At least 1,200 people have already been detained for demonstrating. More than 700 gigabytes of records from Roskomnadzor's Bashkortostan branch were made publicly available online in March by DDoSecrets, a group that publishes hacked documents.

Apple began assembling some of its devices in India and Vietnam a few years ago, slowly cutting its reliance on China. The Cupertino-giant is now gearing up to make the two nations key global manufacturing hubs, according to analysts at JP Morgan. From a report: In a report they sent to clients Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts said Apple will move 5% of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022, and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25% of all iPhones by 2025. Vietnam, on the other hand, will contribute 20% of all iPad and Apple Watch productions, 5% of MacBook and 65% of AirPods by 2025, the report said, which was reviewed by TechCrunch. India has attracted investments from Foxconn and Wistron in recent years by offering lucrative subsidies as New Delhi moves to make the country a manufacturing hub. The presence of the foreign production giants, coupled with "ample labor resources and competitive labor costs," make India a desirable location, the analysts said.

China installed almost as many robots in its factories last year as the rest of the world, accelerating a rush to automate and consolidate its manufacturing dominance even as its working-age population shrinks. WSJ: Shipments of industrial robots to China in 2021 rose 45% compared with the previous year to more than 243,000, according to new data viewed by The Wall Street Journal from the International Federation of Robotics, a robotics industry trade group. China accounted for just under half of all installations of heavy-duty industrial robots last year, reinforcing the nation's status as the No. 1 market for robot manufacturers worldwide. The IFR data shows China installed nearly twice as many new robots as did factories throughout the Americas and Europe.

Part of the explanation for China's rapid automation is that it is simply catching up with richer peers. The world's second-largest economy lags behind the U.S. and manufacturing powerhouses such as Japan, Germany and South Korea in the prevalence of robots on production lines. The rapid automation also reflects a growing recognition in China that its factories need to adapt as the country's supply of cheap labor dwindles and wages rise. The United Nations expects India to surpass China as the world's most-populous country as soon as next year. The population of those in China age 20 to 64 -- the bulk of the workforce -- might have already peaked, U.N. projections show, and is expected to fall steeply after 2030, as China's population ages and birthrates stay low.

The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms' rules. From a report: Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, last week instructed the military commands that engage in psychological operations online to provide a full accounting of their activities by next month after the White House and some federal agencies expressed mounting concerns over the Defense Department's attempted manipulation of audiences overseas, according to several defense and administration officials familiar with the matter.

The takedowns in recent years by Twitter and Facebook of more than 150 bogus personas and media sites created in the United States was disclosed last month by internet researchers Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory. While the researchers did not attribute the sham accounts to the U.S. military, two officials familiar with the matter said that U.S. Central Command is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. The researchers did not specify when the takedowns occurred, but those familiar with the matter said they were within the past two or three years. Some were recent, they said, and involved posts from the summer that advanced anti-Russia narratives citing the Kremlin's "imperialist" war in Ukraine and warning of the conflict's direct impact on Central Asian countries. Significantly, they found that the pretend personas -- employing tactics used by countries such as Russia and China -- did not gain much traction, and that overt accounts actually attracted more followers.

The Biden administration has announced the latest in its renewable energy efforts, this time focused on a technology that hasn't really arrived yet: floating offshore wind turbines. From a report: Compared to turbines directly anchored on the seafloor, floating versions are estimated to cost about 50 percent more, which has made energy development of large areas of the ocean cost-prohibitive. The program announced this week will create a "wind shot" that aims to drop the costs by more than 70 percent over the next decade and position the US as a leader in this industry.

While offshore wind is booming in Europe and China (and poised for a belated takeoff in the US), existing hardware is built directly up from the seafloor, which requires sitting in shallow waters. This works out well for the US East Coast, where a broad continental shelf can host massive wind farms, many of which are in the permitting and planning stages. Most of those projects involve a partnership with European companies, as the US's long delay in adopting offshore wind has ceded the industry to the countries that pioneered the field. Based on a newly released map of the potential for offshore wind in the US, many areas with good potential are too deep to be exploited by wind turbines affixed to the ocean floor. This includes nearly the entire West Coast, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes. Even along the East Coast, floating turbines could greatly expand the areas open to development.

Since the data of about roughly 1 billion Chinese citizens appeared for sale on a popular dark web forum in June, researchers have observed a surge in other kinds of personal records from China appearing on cybercriminal marketplaces. From a report: In the aftermath of that record leak, an estimated 290 million records about people in China surfaced on an underground bazaar known as Breach Forums in July, according to Group-IB, a cybersecurity firm based in Singapore. In August, one seller hawked personal information belonging to nearly 50 million users of Shanghai's mandatory health code system, used to enforce quarantine and testing orders. The alleged hoard included names, phone numbers, IDs and their Covid status -- for the price of $4,000.

"The forum has never seen such an influx of Chinese users and interest in Chinese data," said Feixiang He, a researcher at Group-IB. "The number of attacks on Chinese users may grow in the near future." Bloomberg was unable to confirm the authenticity of the datasets for sale on Breach Forums. The website, like other markets where illicit goods are sold, has been home to false advertisements meant to generate attention, as well as legitimate data apparently stolen in security incidents, including an instance where users marketed user information taken from Twitter.

TikTok repeatedly declined to commit to US lawmakers on Wednesday that the short-form video app will cut off flows of US user data to China, instead promising that the outcome of its negotiations with the US government "will satisfy all national security concerns." From a report: Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas first sparred with Sen. Rob Portman over details of TikTok's corporate structure before being confronted -- twice -- with a specific request. "Will TikTok commit to cutting off all data and data flows to China, China-based TikTok employees, ByteDance employees, or any other party in China that might have the capability to access information on US users?" Portman asked.

The question reflects bipartisan concerns in Washington about the possibility that US user data could find its way to the Chinese government and be used to undermine US interests, thanks to a national security law in that country that compels companies located there to cooperate with data requests. US officials have expressed fears that China could use Americans' personal information to identify useful potential agents or intelligence targets, or to inform future mis- or disinformation campaigns. TikTok does not operate in China, Pappas said, though it does have an office in China. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, whose founder is Chinese and has offices in China. [...] Pappas affirmed in Wednesday's hearing that the company has said, on record, that its Chinese employees do have access to US user data. She also reiterated that TikTok has said it would "under no circumstances ... give that data to China" and denied that TikTok is in any way influenced by China. However, she avoided saying whether ByteDance would keep US user data from the Chinese government or whether ByteDance may be influenced by China.

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order that administration officials say aims to sharpen the national security considerations taken in the federal government's review process for foreign investment in the United States. From a report: Administration officials said the the order will bolster oversight by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency group tasked with reviewing deals and mergers involving foreign people and entities. The committee, known as CFIUS, is made up of members of the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security and is led by the Treasury secretary. It sends its findings and a recommendation to the president, who has the power to suspend or prohibit a deal.

While the White House said the new order is not targeted toward any particular country, it comes amid growing concern among U.S. officials about China's investments in the U.S. technology sector and other industries. The order calls for CFIUS to weigh whether a foreign investment or sale could affect the resilience of critical U.S. supply chains and the impact it could have on U.S. technological leadership in areas affecting U.S. national security and on broader investment trends.

The world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, his most optimistic outlook yet on the years-long health crisis which has killed over six million people. From a report: "We are not there yet. But the end is in sight," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a virtual press conference. That was the most upbeat assessment from the UN agency since it declared an international emergency in January 2020 and started describing COVID-19 as a pandemic three months later. The virus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed nearly 6.5 million people and infected 606 million, roiling global economies and overwhelming healthcare systems. The rollout of vaccines and therapies have helped to stem deaths and hospitalisations, and the Omicron variant which emerged late last year causes less severe disease. Deaths from COVID-19 last week were the lowest since March 2020, the U.N. agency reported.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: There's a new text-to-image AI in town. With ERNIE-ViLG, a new AI developed by the Chinese tech company Baidu, you can generate images that capture the cultural specificity of China. It also makes better anime art than DALL-E 2 or other Western image-making AIs. But there are many things -- like Tiananmen Square, the country's second-largest city square and a symbolic political center -- that the AI refuses to show you. When a demo of the software was released in late August, users quickly found that certain words -- both explicit mentions of political leaders' names and words that are potentially controversial only in political contexts -- were labeled as "sensitive" and blocked from generating any result. China's sophisticated system of online censorship, it seems, has extended to the latest trend in AI. It's not rare for similar AIs to limit users from generating certain types of content. DALL-E 2 prohibits sexual content, faces of public figures, or medical treatment images. But the case of ERNIE-ViLG underlines the question of where exactly the line between moderation and political censorship lies.

The ERNIE-ViLG model is part of Wenxin, a large-scale project in natural-language processing from China's leading AI company, Baidu. It was trained on a data set of 145 million image-text pairs and contains 10 billion parameters -- the values that a neural network adjusts as it learns, which the AI uses to discern the subtle differences between concepts and art styles. That means ERNIE-ViLG has a smaller training data set than DALL-E 2 (650 million pairs) and Stable Diffusion (2.3 billion pairs) but more parameters than either one (DALL-E 2 has 3.5 billion parameters and Stable Diffusion has 890 million). Baidu released a demo version on its own platform in late August and then later on Hugging Face, the popular international AI community. The main difference between ERNIE-ViLG and Western models is that the Baidu-developed one understands prompts written in Chinese and is less likely to make mistakes when it comes to culturally specific words.

But ERNIE-ViLG will be defined, as the other models are, by what it allows. Unlike DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, ERNIE-ViLG does not have a published explanation of its content moderation policy, and Baidu declined to comment for this story. When the ERNIE-ViLG demo was first released on Hugging Face, users inputting certain words would receive the message "Sensitive words found. Please enter again (...)," which was a surprisingly honest admission about the filtering mechanism. However, since at least September 12, the message has read "The content entered doesn't meet relevant rules. Please try again after adjusting it. (...)" In a test of the demo by MIT Technology Review, a number of Chinese words were blocked: names of high-profile Chinese political leaders like Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong; terms that can be considered politically sensitive, like "revolution" and "climb walls" (a metaphor for using a VPN service in China); and the name of Baidu's founder and CEO, Yanhong (Robin) Li. While words like "democracy" and "government" themselves are allowed, prompts that combine them with other words, like "democracy Middle East" or "British government," are blocked. Tiananmen Square in Beijing also can't be found in ERNIE-ViLG, likely because of its association with the Tiananmen Massacre, references to which are heavily censored in China. Giada Pistilli, a principal ethicist at Hugging Face, says it could be helpful for the developer of ERNIE-ViLG to release a document explaining the moderation decisions. "Is it censored because it's the law that's telling them to do so? Are they doing that because they believe it's wrong? It always helps to explain our arguments, our choices," says Pistilli.

"Despite the built-in censorship, ERNIE-ViLG will still be an important player in the development of large-scale text-to-image AIs," concludes the report. "The emergence of AI models trained on specific language data sets makes up for some of the limitations of English-based mainstream models. It will particularly help users who need an AI that understands the Chinese language and can generate accurate images accordingly."

"Just as Chinese social media platforms have thrived in spite of rigorous censorship, ERNIE-ViLG and other Chinese AI models may eventually experience the same: they're too useful to give up."