OnePlus temporarily disables artificial intelligence feature due to censorship allegations

OnePlus’ latest smartphones come with a suite of AI features, including an AI Writer tool that generates text at a given request. However, OnePlus owners have complained that the tool is allegedly biased towards China and blocks certain topics. Now, the company has given an official explanation.

Reddit and Twitter users reported that AI Writer was refusing to create texts on the topics of Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Instead of the result, the tool was prompting the user to «type something else».

OnePlus confirmed on its Community forum that the issue was a «technical error» and temporarily disabled the tool:

«Over the past two days, we’ve received reports of technical inconsistencies with AI Writer in the OnePlus Notes app. We promptly launched an internal investigation and yesterday shared preliminary information about our hybrid AI architecture and collaboration with global model developers.Because resolving the issue requires additional time, we are temporarily disabling AI Writer in Notes to ensure a stable user experience. OnePlus remains committed to a Community-first approach and any unexpected behavior is unintentional».

At this point, it’s confirmed that AI Writer is indeed disabled. OnePlus does not specify a timeline for its re-launch.

It’s understandable why OnePlus smartphones for the Chinese market might have restrictions on certain topics, but it’s not surprising that global users and governments are unhappy about having such restrictions outside of China. It’s also noted that a few users were still able to generate texts on these topics a few days ago, indicating a glitch or regional feature rather than widespread censorship.