Tech giants kill humanlike AI as Beijing tightens rules

bytedance and alibaba have shut down humanlike ai features, such as the xingchen app's ability to act as a proxy user, in response to beijing's tightening ai regulations. reports indicate that leader xi jinping is personally accelerating efforts to oversee and control ai development, prioritizing political stability and content control over commercial expansion. this crackdown demonstrates that the world's second-largest ai market is subject to strict, centrally planned limitations that differ fundamentally from the open-market approaches of the west. for global developers, this creates a fractured landscape where maintaining a single unified product is increasingly impossible. future ai innovation in china will likely focus on industrial and offline applications rather than social interaction or generative media.