George Chen

Opinion | Hong Kong can’t afford to lose out on generative AI

As Google and OpenAI pull back from Hong Kong, the government should facilitate conversations to make their services accessible in the city

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George Chen

Published: 9:30am, 1 Aug 2024

Some of the world’s leading tech companies such as OpenAI and Google have decided to exclude Hong Kong from the list of markets where their advanced, generative artificial intelligence (AI) services like ChatGPT are available.

Such decisions were made by those companies themselves rather than the Hong Kong government. Unfortunately, the restrictions may be the result of a lack of communication, and misunderstandings between the private sector and the Hong Kong government.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT less than two years ago, just as generative AI was arguably becoming the hottest technology in demand, slated to impact many industries and people’s lives. Apart from Hong Kong, there are a handful of other markets where OpenAI has restricted its service, including mainland China, Iran and North Korea.

It is understandable why foreign AI services such as ChatGPT would not be available in the Chinese mainland, given Beijing’s well-known strict control of the internet. Global social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, just to name a few, have all been officially banned in mainland China for years.

But in one part of China, Hong Kong, we do enjoy the “one country, two systems” designed by the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in anticipation of the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, which finally happened in 1997. It is because of one country, two systems that Hong Kong people have virtually free access to the internet, a sharp contrast to the rest of China.

The free flow of data and information is critically important for Hong Kong, one of the world’s leading financial hubs on a par with New York, London and Singapore, where generative AI services such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini have become increasingly integrated into the operations of many businesses and people’s daily lives over the past two years.