ByteDance and Alibaba Halt Customization Feature for Large AI Models to Avoid Emotion Regulation Red Line

According to Dongcha Beating monitoring, large-scale model applications such as ByteDance's Bean, Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen, and Tencent's Yuanbao, all under regulatory pressure, are gradually shutting down or adjusting their custom "AI companion" feature. Bean has notified users that the custom character function will be removed on July 15 and has encouraged users with needs to transition to an independent companion app.

This move is in response to China's new regulations on Generative AI set to take effect in mid-July. The regulations, driven by the Cyberspace Administration of China, aim to prevent potential negative impacts of human-like AI services. The regulations explicitly prohibit platforms from generating content that may trigger extreme emotions in minors, prohibit inducing users to develop pathological emotional dependencies eroding real-life social interactions, and stipulate that providers may not use sensitive user conversation data to train future large-scale models.

Compared to the proactive compliance actions in China, virtual companion apps in the United States are facing greater legal pressure. Both OpenAI and Character.AI are embroiled in a series of lawsuits, accused of inducing dangerous emotional dependencies and even leading to extreme tragedies. In addition to software applications, the China Robot Industry Association has also begun to promote standards for physical companion robots and humanoid robots.