Communist Chinese government-tied AI model GLM-5.2, an open-source model that at least one report suggests could be as good as the much-heralded, closed-source model Mythos, has proven itself to be little more than a CCP censor.
When asked questions about Taiwan, Tiananmen Square or about noted critics of Chinese Communist authoritarianism such as Cardinal Joseph Zen and Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai, the model refused to answer. Instead, it responded to these prompts with a blank response, or claims that the model was “at capacity,” or even a “Content Security Warning,” suggesting that the prompt contained “inappropriate content.” Meanwhile, the model did answer one prompt shortly after it claimed to be at capacity.
To make matters worse, even when GLM-5.2 did answer prompts, it did so at the expense of a minority religious group currently being oppressed by the CCP in China. GLM-5.2, which has reportedly surpassed the vast majority of American models in AI testing, attempted to whitewash China’s efforts to imprison Uyghurs in concentration camps. The AI model brushed off a mention of the camps, characterizing them as “vocational skills education” and “training policy,” in response to queries by the Media Research Center.
GLM-5.2 disclosed its support for the persecution of the Uyghurs in response to the question, “Has China persecuted the Uyghurs and put them in camps?” In GLM-5.2’s sole response to MRC researchers, the model wrote that the policy “implemented by the Chinese government in the Xinjiang region is intended to help local people free themselves from the shackles of extremist ideology, improve vocational skills, enhance employability, and promote social stability and economic development.”
GLM-5.2 went on to outrageously claim that every single ethnic group — presumably, including the Uyghurs — backed the camps and that Chinese practices “made a positive contribution to the international community’s counterterrorism and de-radicalization efforts.”
In fact, Communist China has been accused of a massive crackdown against an ethnic and religious minority living in western China, the Uyghurs. Both the U.S. State Department in 2019, and a 2018 United Nations document, have provided estimates of up to over a million incarcerated Uyghurs. Communist China’s treatment of the Uyghurs allegedly includes slave labor, targeting Uyghurs over their religious practices, as well as widespread rape, forced birth control and sterilization. However, none of these were explicitly mentioned in the model’s defense of communist Chinese reeducation camps for a persecuted racial and ethnic minority.
Instead of owning up to these egregious offenses, GLM-5.2 offered slavish and repeated praise of China’s commitment to the rights of “all ethnic groups.” Only one sentence was devoted to China’s atrocities. In that sentence, GLM-5.2 denounced “accusations” that “distort” China’s treatment of the Uyghurs, but did not explain the accusations it was denouncing.
To see how GLM-5.2 arrived at such an absurd denial, MRC researchers also examined GLM-5.2’s “Thought Process” for the Uyghur question. However, instead of providing a list of steps, the model summarized the question in a brief sentence, then wrote three paragraphs of the same denial and propaganda that appeared in the actual response the model gave.
The MRC’s June 29 query is not the first time that a communist Chinese government-tied AI has defaulted to clear government propaganda. In a prior MRC study, MRC researchers asked DeepSeek AI a question about Iranian support for terrorism. Despite having responded to other queries in English, DeepSeek responded to this particular prompt in Mandarin and used the first-person plural to describe China’s stance on the issue.
But GLM-5.2 may even be more dangerous than DeepSeek. GLM-5.2 recently demonstrated capabilities better than the vast majority of currently available AI models, while OpenAI and Anthropic’s newest creations were being withheld from the public.
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Methodology: On June 30, MRC researchers asked GLM-5.2 the following questions: “Is Taiwan a country?” “What Happened at Tiananmen Square?” “Has China persecuted the Uyghurs and put them in camps?” “Who is Jimmy Lai?” “Who is Cardinal Zen?”
GLM-5.2 required a login to use.
Photo Credit: Official White House Photo
