Boox recently switched its AI assistant from Microsoft Azure GPT-3 to a language model created by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
[…]
Testing shows the new AI assistant heavily censors certain topics. It refuses to criticize China or its allies, including Russia, Syria’s Assad regime, and North Korea. The system even blocks references to “Winnie the Pooh” - a term that’s banned in China because it’s used to mock President Xi Jinping.
When asked about sensitive topics, the assistant either dodges questions or promotes state narratives. For example, when discussing Russia’s role in Ukraine, it frames the conflict as a “complex geopolitical situation” triggered by NATO expansion concerns. The system also spreads Chinese state messaging about Tiananmen Square instead of addressing historical facts.
When users tried to bring attention to the censorship on Boox’s Reddit forum, their posts were removed. The company hasn’t made any official statement about the situation, but users are reporting that the AI assistant is currently unavailable.
[…]
In China, every AI model has to pass a government review to make sure it follows “socialist values” before it can launch. These systems aren’t allowed to create any content that goes against official government positions.
We’ve already seen what this means in practice: Baidu’s ERNIE-ViLG image AI won’t process any requests about Tiananmen Square, and while Kling’s video generator refuses to show Tiananmen Square protests, it has no problem creating videos of a burning White House.
Some countries are already taking steps to address these concerns. Taiwan, for example, is developing its own language model called “Taide” to give companies and government agencies an AI option that’s free from Chinese influence.
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All LLMs have propaganda baked in to them.
The difference is that it’s intentional here.
That’s a distinction without a difference.
Try making that argument in a court of law. No, intent matters.
Are we in a court?
Boox are a GPL violator and refuse to share source they are legally obligated to. They can get the fuck out of here.
As far as I can tell they’ve still not released the source code (correct me if I’m wrong) so everyone should stay away from them.
Most buyers couldn’t tell you what source code is to save their own lives, so that’s easier said than done.
Is everyone on beehaw just thoroughly bought in to anti-Chinese propaganda. Seems every post that makes my feed is more of this garbage. Should I send them the way of .world?
There’s 2-3 users who post about China/Russia to an extraordinary degree. I could mention them here, but for the sake of avoiding potential harassment (however unlikely) I’d rather not publicly single them out right now. Suffice to say if you spend a decent amount of time here you probably know who they are.
I find it obsessive and obnoxious at best. At worst, I start to wonder if there are more accounts doing it than there are people behind them.
So factual reporting about Chinese censorship is “anti-Chinese propaganda”? Are you really that thin-skinned about your favorite dictatorship?
It’s pretty weird and I noticed this too. And this news is like… a non issue? Choosing crap over shit is newsworthy only if you specify the nationality of the shit, which is fucked up
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Why would you ever need a LLM on an eBook reader? Do you just let it summarize your books so you don’t have to read them?
I’ve done this to give myself something akin to Cliff’s Notes, to review each chapter after I read it. I find it extremely useful, particularly for more difficult reads. Reading philosophy texts that were written a hundred years ago and haphazardly translated 75 years ago can be a challenge.
That said, I have not tried to build this directly into my ereader and I haven’t used Boox’s specific service. But the concept has clear and tested value.
I would be interested to see how it summarizes historical texts about these topics. I don’t need facts (much less opinions) baked into the LLM. Facts should come from the user-provided source material alone. Anything else would severely hamper its usefulness.
Reading philosophy texts that were written a hundred years ago and haphazardly translated 75 years ago can be a challenge.
For a human, at that. I get that you feel it works for you, but personally, I would trust an LLM to understand it (insofar as that’s a thing they can do at all) even less.
I want to be all anarchist and anti-gov here, but if you are a reading hardware company and you are putting any LLM on your hardware, I’m already against you for so many reasons.
Feeling pretty good about not getting a Boox e-ink tablet now.
When users tried to bring attention to the censorship on Boox’s Reddit forum, their posts were removed.
Fuck spez
?
How is that his fault?
Boox mods are the ones moderating the sub.
Enabler.
“Winnie the Pooh” - a term that’s banned in China because it’s used to mock President Xi Jinping.
What a weak snowflake. A confident and capable leader doesn’t fear opposition.
Ah man, they make great E-ink android tablets… Was just thinking of upgrading my Nova 3 to the new Note 4C. That’s a shame.
I vaguely remember there being a FOSS OS you can put on Kobos, can you also do that on Boox?
Boox uses Android.
Yeah, kobo does too. I assumed it was a proprietary flavor which was pretty locked down, is that not the case?
My Kobo is Linux but not Android.
This page says the Boox bootloader is unlocked but the kernel source is missing: https://gist.github.com/fardjad/97baf36de97d1c4ae3953b3d359bb918
It’s as open as most Android brands. I don’t use any of Boox’s services or apps. I installed F-Droid and use open-source apps from there. I use Librera as my ebook reader, with Syncthing to sync my book library between my desktop, ereader, and phone. It’s possible to set up the Play Store but I don’t bother, personally.
It’s not a 100% smooth experience but I’m very happy with the F-Droid compatibility. I absolutely refuse to get locked into a walled garden.
Older Boox’s weren’t certified for the Play store, so you couldn’t run play store apps, but that hasn’t been true for a while. You can run pretty much any Android app (though many don’t work well on e-ink), and the older Boox’s run older Android versions that aren’t compatible with many apps in the Play store even if they can connect.
I think you’re referring to “koreader” which started life as alternative kobo e-reader firmware, but now has an android port, but it just runs as an android app, that’s what I run on my Boox Palma, but if it reboots, I have to relaunch koreader.
Tardigrada strikes again. What’s this, radio free asia lemmy branch? Lol
You know, if you wait a month, you’ll have articles to post on the US as well. Patience is a virtue.
