Marketplace Tech · Thursday, September 24, 2026
Contrary to a common narrative in the US, Sam Sachs highlighted that Chinese AI companies and platforms are heavily regulated by their government, with rules aimed at addressing public concerns like youth addiction to AI chatbots. This regulation has led some companies to over-comply by removing AI agents.
“A lot of people outside of China would be surprised to learn that Chinese companies, AI labs, as well as tech internet platforms, are very heavily regulated in China and they have been for several years.”
“What that looks like is very different in China's political system than it looks in ours. But to give you an example, Chinese public have been very concerned with, you know, teenagers, young people staying up all night talking with AI chatbots or companions. And so the government regulated it. They outlawed, um, agents that developed human sort of emotional characteristics that led people to an addictive state.”
“So I don't want to make it out to be a picture that the US would want to copy and paste entirely. But it is a picture that has to be taken into account.”