The head of the European Geological Society was fired over China's AI
As AI technology has developed in recent years, companies and organizations have begun using their own AI in their research.
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 that utilizes big data analysis, cloud computing, AI, and other technologies to study the evolution and applications of the Earth and the Sustainable Development Goals. 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 support from the Chinese government. The AI chatbot was developed by Alibaba's Chief Technology Officer, Jian Wang, and is built on Alibaba's own chatbot, Qwen.
GeoGPT, which has learned billions of words from open-source geological research data, has the ability to provide expert-like answers to user questions and summarize documents. Michael Stevenson, one of the founders of DDE, tested an early version of GeoGPT and reported, 'When I asked about the difficulty of using
Meanwhile, Paul Cleverley, a visiting professor at Robert Gordon University, has criticized GeoGPT, saying, 'GeoGPT has serious problems, including a lack of transparency, censorship by the Chinese government, and copyright infringement.' Phoebe McMellon, CEO of the nonprofit GeoScienceWorld , also submitted a letter to the IUGS claiming, 'GeoGPT illegally learns from unlicensed literature and generates answers without identifying their sources, thereby lacking transparency.'
In response to McMellon's letter, DDE President Chenxiang Wang stated, 'Since no specific examples of copyright infringement have been presented, there is no need to halt the GeoGPT development project. Furthermore, Wang stated, 'We should not proceed with the expansion of GeoGPT until we can display the source of answers.'
The claim that GeoGPT is a copyright infringement also reached the European Geosciences Union (EGU). While EGU President Irina Artemieva deemed the claim 'irrelevant and dismissive,' other EGU officials attempted to remove conference abstracts about the issue. 'Their problem seems to be that GeoGPT was developed in China,' Artemieva said.
Artemieva forwarded the complaint email to EGU's CEO, Wang, asking for his opinion, but she accidentally sent the email without deleting the personal information of the informant.
The EGU, taking the matter seriously, removed Artemieva from its ethics committee and, in May 2024, held a meeting of EGU leaders and dismissed Artemieva from her position as president, citing a 'breach of confidentiality regarding the informant.' Vice-president Peter van der Beek was promoted to president.
In response, Artemieva, who was once a Russian citizen, said, 'After Russia invaded Ukraine, the EGU leadership did not want me to be in the leadership position. They were always looking for an opportunity to undermine my position.' Former EGU president John Rudden criticized the EGU leadership, saying, 'Their behavior was a bit excessive. They were not willing to listen to Ms. Artemieva's arguments.'
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