Urgent reminder! ChatGPT is becoming popular, beware of being scammed! Baidu is also fighting against counterfeiting!

Recently, as the intelligent chat robot ChatGPT has become popular around the world, many giants have also announced their entry into the market. For example, Baidu announced on February 7 that its ChatGPT-like project "Wenxin Yiyan" completed internal testing in March and was open to the public, sparking heated discussions among netizens.

Reporters have discovered that there are already many social media accounts with the name "Wen Xin Yi Yan" on the Internet, but the main body is other companies or individuals. In response to this, on February 9, Baidu officially posted a picture to refute the rumor, saying that Wen Xin Yi Yan has not yet registered a social account and will officially meet everyone in March.

Image source: Internet

In addition to Baidu's chatbots that have impersonated social accounts, a number of WeChat public accounts and mini-programs with "ChatGPT" in their names have also emerged in China. Are these domestic products real? What is their connection with the real ChatGPT?

01

Use ChatGPT official icon as avatar

Free trial starts charging after a few attempts

According to media reports, if you open the WeChat search box, you can find a series of products that are "related" to ChatGPT, and use the official ChatGPT icon as their avatar. Many of these accounts were registered this year when ChatGPT became popular.

If you search on WeChat, you can find a series of products that are related to ChatGPT.

The service mode of these products is mostly free trial first, and then start charging once the free trial is exhausted.

Taking "ChatGPT Online" as an example, it provides users with 4 free conversation quotas, and continued use requires recharge. The recharge amounts are 9.99 yuan/20 times (valid for three months), 99.99 yuan/1300 times (valid for half a year), 199.99 yuan/3000 times (valid for one year), and 999.99 yuan/unlimited times (valid for one year).

Another similar service, "GPT Deep Blue", also shows a ChatVIP recharge mechanism with monthly membership of 199 yuan, quarterly membership of 399 yuan, and annual membership of 999 yuan. The page even has an option to "join an agent and make money."

"ChatGPT Online" offers paid options.

However, before press time, some media searched again on WeChat and found that the public accounts with "ChatGPT" in their names had almost disappeared, and some public accounts had been renamed.

The latest search shows that there are almost no public accounts with ChatGPT in their names.

A public account has changed its name frequently in the past two days.

02

The service is not provided in Mainland China

"Copycat" suspected of trademark and name infringement

At present, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT and an artificial intelligence research institution, does not provide ChatGPT-related services in mainland China, nor does it have any corresponding company operations.

On WeChat, "ChatGPT Online" introduces itself as "ChatGPT Chinese version, advanced intelligent AI chat and AI writing tool." The operator is Shanghai Entropy Cloud Network Technology Co., Ltd.

Tianyancha App shows that the company was established in January 2018 with a registered capital of RMB 2 million. Its business scope includes Internet information services, second-category value-added telecommunications services, Internet sales of publications, and online cultural operations. Zhu Shenshen and Yin Peng hold 85% and 15% of the shares respectively.

The latest information shows that "ChatGPT Online" has been renamed "AI Dialogue | Intelligent Writing Q&A", but related services can still be seen on the official account, and the official icon of ChatGPT has also been deleted from the official account's avatar.

However, the customer service name added from the official account is still "ChatGPT Online Customer Service". The customer service said that the official account was forced to change its name because of malicious complaints about competition.

"ChatGPT Online" has been renamed "AI Dialogue | Intelligent Writing Q&A".

Another public account named "OpenAI Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT" shows that its company is Guizhou Xingliliang Information Consulting Service Co., Ltd. Tianyancha App shows that the company was established in July 2014 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan. The business scope includes computer information technology consulting services, advertising design, corporate management consulting, etc.

"OpenAI Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT" has also been renamed and is now found to be an "unnamed public account."

Regarding the use of OpenAI and ChatGPT's names and trademarks, Chu Jiang, a senior lawyer at Beijing Zhoutai Law Firm, said that the activities of such products on the Internet involve a series of legal issues and may violate the Trademark Law, the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the Consumer Protection Law, the Cybersecurity Law, and even relevant provisions of the Criminal Law.

Chu Jiang said that ChatGPT is a product launched by OpenAI, and OpenAI enjoys all its property rights, including the name "ChatGPT" as an identifier of the source of products and services.

However, Chu Jiang introduced that China's Trademark Law mainly protects registered trademark rights. "If a natural person, legal person or other organization needs to obtain the exclusive right to a trademark for its goods or services in its production and business activities, it shall apply to the Trademark Office for trademark registration" (Article 4, paragraph 1). Therefore, it is also difficult for OpenAI to protect its rights. According to the search results of the China Trademark Network, OpenAI or its affiliated entities have not submitted trademark registration applications to the China National Trademark Office. Instead, many entities that counterfeit or use its name are registering trademarks. This means that although there are currently a large number of counterfeit or fraudulent publicity in the name of ChatGPT and OpenAI in China, it is difficult for OpenAI to obtain comprehensive trademark law protection before obtaining approved registration.

03

Is it a fake service? How to identify it?

In addition to using the name and trademark of ChatGPT, some public accounts and mini-programs also claim that they "transfer" ChatGPT's services to China through technical means to facilitate user use and charge fees. So, are they really "transferred" ChatGPT services?

Earlier, a reporter called the staff of Shanghai Enyun Network Technology Co., Ltd., who said that all the responses sent through their platform were obtained through a direct connection to the OpenAI company interface. "We also need to pay OpenAI for each question and answer session, and we have to pay a lot of money. The specific cost is determined by the length of the characters in the conversation. If you have the technical ability, you can also develop it yourself." The staff member said.

How to identify the fake ChatGPT?

After asking questions directly to several domestic ChatGPT service providers and comparing them with the official ChatGPT, the reporter found that judging from the quality of responses, some domestic service providers are indeed likely to provide interfaces for ChatGPT, while other service providers may not be linked to the ChatGPT service, but instead use other AI dialogue models.

For example, when the reporter asked a domestic "ChatGPT service provider" for self-introduction information, it did not answer that it was ChatGPT, nor did it actually write a program in response to the requirement of "writing a crawler program". The official ChatGPT not only directly answered its identity, but also wrote a real crawler program.

For questions answered by the domestic "ChatGPT service provider", you need to watch an advertisement for each answer.

In this regard, a network security practitioner told reporters that there are currently only two modes of "ChatGPT service providers" in China: one is to obtain the official interface of ChatGPT and then provide it to domestic users as a "second-hand product", and the other is a complete "copycat", using an AI dialogue model that is not as good as ChatGPT and naturally cannot give high-quality answers.

Regarding this type of copycat behavior, lawyer Chu Jiang concluded that this business model has many legal issues: counterfeiting or using the name of ChatGPT or OpenAI to carry out business activities may constitute a series of infringements under the Trademark Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law; if it is used to make profits and causes losses to consumers, it may incur civil or administrative liability under the Trademark Law, the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and the Consumer Rights Protection Law. If the circumstances are serious and cause major losses, it may also constitute a criminal offense; if the provision of such cross-border business services involves the private construction of international channels, it may also violate the relevant provisions of the Cybersecurity Law and the Criminal Law, and bear administrative liability or constitute a criminal offense.

Source: People's Daily Online, Guangming Daily, China News Service, The Paper, Beike Finance, Beijing Daily

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