Senior officials call for legal 'red lines' in AI development

Senior Chinese officials on cyberspace and law on Sunday called for precisely setting legal "red lines and high lines", along with ethics guidelines and technical standards, to ensure artificial intelligence develops in a safe, reliable, and controllable direction.

They made the remarks at a sub-forum on law-based cyberspace governance during the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

Li Mingzheng, vice-minister of justice, said AI — "a strategic technology driving a new round of scientific and industrial transformation" — has brought both opportunities and risks.

"AI technology cannot deviate from the direction of human civilizational progress," Li said, adding that development and security must be advanced in a coordinated way.

"While promoting continuous innovation and breakthroughs, we must proactively guard against and address potential risks, ensuring AI develops in a safe, reliable, and controllable manner," he said.

He added that China will "grasp the trends and patterns of AI development, precisely set legal red lines and high lines, and give full play to the safeguarding role of the rule of law."

AI governance, Li noted, is a complex systems project that requires the participation of government, industry, academia, research institutions, and the public.

Yang Jianwen, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said AI is profoundly reshaping production and daily life, driving revolutionary advances in productivity and deep structural change.

At the same time, he cautioned, new technical risks such as data security gaps, algorithmic bias, and deepfakes have emerged, extending into social, ethical, and legal challenges.

To meet these challenges, Yang called for continuously improving the legal and policy framework for AI, refining ethics guidelines for research, development, and application, and accelerating the formulation of technical standards in key fields.

He also urged stronger enforcement against illegal or abusive uses of AI, improving law-enforcement measures suited to AI's development and governance, fully leveraging industry self-discipline, and building a multi-stakeholder, collaborative governance system.

The officials said China will continue to promote an ecosystem in which innovation is encouraged and risks are effectively managed, so that AI can better serve economic development, social governance, and people's well-being.