Hong Kong can’t afford to lose out on generative AI

Such decisions were made by those companies themselves rather than the Hong Kong government. Unfortunately, the restrictions may be the result of a lack of communication, and misunderstandings between the private sector and the Hong Kong government.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT less than two years ago, just as generative AI was arguably becoming the hottest technology in demand, slated to impact many industries and people’s lives. Apart from Hong Kong, there are a handful of other markets where OpenAI has restricted its service, including mainland China, Iran and North Korea.

The free flow of data and information is critically important for Hong Kong, one of the world’s leading financial hubs on a par with New York, London and Singapore, where generative AI services such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini have become increasingly integrated into the operations of many businesses and people’s daily lives over the past two years.

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How a Hong Kong school embraces ChatGPT in the classroom

This is a promising development, even though it may be challenging for the Hong Kong government to annually invest the sums of money needed to match the advanced level of generative AI developments achieved by OpenAI and Google. Hong Kong should welcome locally developed AI services as a diversity of tools can also promote more innovation in the industry.

However, on the other hand, our government should also be more proactive and reach out to companies such as OpenAI and Google to exchange more views on how Hong Kong can be included in their services, which are available to most of the rest of the world.

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How does China’s AI stack up against ChatGPT?

Hong Kong users have long enjoyed free access to international media outlets and social media