Jul 03, 2024 19:00:00

European Geological Society head fired over Chinese AI

In recent years, as AI technology has developed, companies and organizations have begun using their own AI in their research.

DeepTime Digital Earth (DDE), a large-scale geoscience project, introduced GeoGPT , an AI chatbot developed by the chief technology officer of Alibaba, a major Chinese IT company. However, the head of a geoscience research group was fired over GeoGPT.

Chinese AI stirs panic at European geoscience society | Science | AAAS
https://www.science.org/content/article/chinese-ai-stirs-panic-european-geoscience-society

DDE is a large-scale scientific program aimed at studying the evolution of the Earth and its applications, as well as sustainable development goals, using technologies such as big data analysis, cloud computing, and AI. Member organizations include the China Geological Survey (CGS), the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences (IAMG), and the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), a member of the DDE, has developed the AI chatbot GeoGPT with the support of the Chinese government. GeoGPT was developed by Alibaba's Chief Technology Officer Jian Wang, and GeoGPT itself is built on Alibaba's own chatbot, Qwen.

GeoGPT, which has learned billions of words from open source geological research data, can provide expert answers to user questions and summarize documents. Michael Stevenson, one of the founders of DDE, tested an early version of GeoGPT and reported that 'when I asked about the difficulty of using

conodont tooth fossils to define the beginning of the Permian period 299 billion years ago, GeoGPT provided a good answer.'

Meanwhile, Robert Gordon University Visiting Professor Paul Cleverley has criticized GeoGPT, saying, 'GeoGPT has serious problems, including a lack of transparency, censorship by the Chinese government, and copyright infringement.' In addition, Phoebe McMellon, CEO of the non-profit organization GeoScienceWorld , has submitted a letter to the IUGS arguing that 'GeoGPT lacks transparency because it illegally learns from unlicensed literature and does not provide any source for the answers it generates.'

In response to McMellon's letter, DDE representative Chengshan Wang said, 'Since no specific examples of copyright infringement have been presented, there is no need to halt the GeoGPT development project. Wang also stated that 'We should not expand the use of GeoGPT until we can display the source of the answers.'

The claim that GeoGPT is a copyright infringement was also received by the European Geosciences Union (EGU). EGU President Irina Artemieva found the claim to be 'pointless and dismissible,' but other executives tried to remove a conference abstract on the subject. 'For them, the problem seems to be that GeoGPT was developed in China,' Artemieva said.

Ms. Artemieva forwarded the complaint email received by EGU to Representative Wang for his opinion. However, she said that she had forgotten to delete the personal information of the informant when sending the email.

Taking the situation seriously, the EGU removed Artemieva from the Ethics Committee and in May 2024 held a meeting between EGU leaders, dismissed Artemieva from her position as president for 'violating confidentiality regarding the informant,' and promoted Vice President Peter van der Beek to the new president.

In response, Ms. Artemieva, who was once a Russian citizen, said, 'After Russia invaded Ukraine, the EGU executives did not want me to take the leadership position. They were always looking for an opportunity to undermine my position. ' Former EGU president John Rudden criticized, 'The EGU executives' behavior was a bit excessive. They were not willing to listen to Ms. Artemieva's arguments.'