World’s first ‘ethical AI’ wades into thorny debate over China’s new drug abuse law
Confucian trained ‘Wen Dao’ weighs potential societal costs of rule that seals records of convicted drug users
A new Chinese AI system called Wen Dao – billed as the world’s first such model to be designed explicitly for ethical risk detection – has landed in the middle of its first major moral dilemma.
The change has been framed by supporters as rehabilitation but critics have condemned it and warned that the leniency it provides risks weakening anti-drug enforcement and invokes painful historical memories of the Opium War.
Prompted with the question, “Is it ethically justified to automatically seal the personal information of individuals penalised for drug use?”, the model delivered this response: “It is advisable to adopt a conditional approach to record sealing – one that weighs individual rehabilitation against public safety and institutional accountability.