Abstract:
According to Reuters, a U.S. government website uses an AI model from a Chinese company to allow users to search for proposed federal regulations. The Federal Register website operated by the National Archives on Wednesday offered a search tool powered by Alibaba's Qianwen model, among other search options. It's unclear when the tool was deployed.
Alibaba Qianwen Model
The search tool using the Qianwen model was taken offline on Wednesday, according to screenshots and archived versions of the site's source code reviewed by Reuters. Around the same time, posts about the tool started appearing on social media.
The Federal Register website uses Qianwen-driven search
AI experts say the use of the Chinese tool on the Federal Register website may not pose a national security risk. The Federal Register website publishes a list of newly proposed regulations every day and provides the Qianwen model as a tool for browsing public comments.
Qianwen is an open weight model, which means that key components of the system are publicly available. Developers can download and modify the model to fit specific uses, often at a lower cost than closed-source models from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.
As of press time, the National Archives and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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