Beijing Issues Draft Rules Targeting Emotion-Driven AI Chatbots

China has trodden this path before: the 2019 gaming curfew for minors and the August 2023 "Interim Measures for Generative AI" both sought to curb digital addiction and ideological risks, just as Britain’s 1833 Factory Act reined in industrial labour abuses and the 1934 U.S. Communications Act set speech boundaries for a disruptive medium. The new emotional-AI draft extends Beijing’s long-running cyber-sovereignty project, signalling that psychological as well as political effects will be regulated at the code level. If enacted, it may export a blueprint for affect-surveillance—companies everywhere sell in China’s market—yet history hints at constant recalibration: early data-protection laws of the 1980s were revised repeatedly as computing leapt ahead. A century from now, this moment may be remembered less for its specific provisions than for marking the first official attempt to legislate the intimate frontier between human feelings and artificial personalities.