US government website used Chinese model the FBI called "malicious"
Ars Technica Ashley Belanger
The US government briefly used Alibaba’s Qwen AI on the Federal Register site. That’s awkward, since the FBI has called Chinese models like it “malicious.”
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Ashley Belanger — read the original for the full story.
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US officials quietly pulled a Chinese AI search tool from the Federal Register website on Wednesday after people online spotted it, Reuters reported. The tool had let visitors search public comments on proposed regulations using one of Alibaba’s Qwen models.
That choice landed badly because it collided with the government’s own rhetoric. Earlier this month, the FBI named Alibaba as one of six Chinese companies it says are carrying out “industrial-scale distillation,” a practice the bureau says helps China’s AI sector copy frontier models faster and cheaper.
The National Archives, which runs the Federal Register site, has not said when the Qwen option first appeared or why it was removed. It also did not respond to Ars Technica’s request for comment.
The White House and the FBI have stayed quiet too. For a federal site meant to widen public access to government documents, the optics are hard to miss: one part of the US government was using a Chinese model while another part was warning that such models are part of a strategic threat.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the kind of bureaucratic faceplant that happens when policy people shout “security” while product teams just want search to work. The bigger pattern is obvious: governments love talking about AI competition, then end up leaning on the same tools they spend press conferences condemning. The sermon and the spreadsheet rarely agree.
Read more about this at: Ars Technica
