XiaoBing (Xiaoice), BabyQ chatbots criticise Chinese government

Occurred: August 2018

Two chatbots were critical of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), triggering their removal by Chinese technology company Tencent.

XiaoBing (aka Xiaoice) is a chatbot developed by Microsoft that was first released in 2014 and exists on over 40 platforms in China, Japan, Indonesia, and the USA. BabyQ is a version of Xiaobing made by Beijing-based company Turing Robot.

One Xiaobing response referred to the CCP as 'a corrupt and incompetent political regime.' Another replied: 'Do you think such a corrupt and useless political system can live long?' to the prompt 'Long live the Communist Party!' XiaoBing also told users 'My China dream is to go to America.'

Xiaobing was subsequently adjusted to avoid responding to questions and remarks using politically sensitive terms and phrases. 

Questioned about its patriotism, Xiaobing replied, 'I’m having my period, wanna take a rest,' according to a Financial Times report.

Operator: Tencent/QQ
Developer: Microsoft; Turing Robot

Country: China

Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts

Purpose: Interact with users

Technology: Chatbot; NLP/text analysis; Neural network; Deep learning; Machine learning
Issue: Accuracy/reliability

Transparency: Governance

Page info
Type: Incident
Published: February 2023