SUMMARYUS government officials removed an Alibaba Qwen AI search tool from the Federal Register website after social media users noticed its use on a National Archives site. The tool had been available for searching public comments on proposed regulations, but the timing of its deployment is unclear. The National Archives, White House, and FBI did not comment on the removal.
On Wednesday, US government officials removed a Chinese AI search tool that was briefly deployed on the Federal Register website, Reuters reported.
The change came after social media users noticed an apparent contradiction: The National Archives was using one of Alibaba’s Qwen AI models, even as top US law enforcement claimed that such models illegally copy US frontier models. Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named Alibaba among six leading Chinese firms allegedly conducting “industrial-scale distillation” that the agency says is helping America’s biggest competitor cut costs and development time in the race for global AI leadership.
It’s unclear when exactly the National Archives, which runs the Federal Register website, began offering visitors the option to use a Qwen model to search public comments on proposed regulations. So far, the independent agency tasked with increasing public access to federal government documents has not commented on the removal and did not respond to Ars’ request for comment. The White House and the FBI have also not commented.