AI-generated image for representation
It was not immediately clear when the Qwen-powered tool was added. Screenshots and an archived version of the website’s source code reviewed by Reuters showed that the feature was available on Wednesday before being taken down later that day.
The development is notable because it comes just days after US officials accused Chinese AI companies of engaging in “malicious” copying of American technology on an “industrial scale”, adding another layer to the growing debate in Washington over the use of Chinese AI models by US organisations. Georgetown Law Professor Anupam Chander said the use of Qwen did not appear to present an immediate cybersecurity risk, although the risk could depend on how the model was trained. The tool was available alongside other search options before it was taken down around the same time social media posts about its use began appearing. Qwen is an open-weight AI model, meaning key components of the system are publicly available. Developers can download and modify such models for specific applications, potentially making them cheaper and easier to deploy than closed AI systems offered by companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI. As the Federal Register’s content is publicly available, the model apparently was not being used to process classified or otherwise sensitive government information.
FBI recently accused Chinese technology giant Alibaba of “malicious” copying of artificial intelligence (AI) technology from US rival Anthropic. The Federal Register website, operated by the National Archives, had a search tool powered by Alibaba’s Qwen AI model, according to a report by the news agency Reuters. Now, a US government website that helps users search proposed federal regulations was also found to use an AI model developed by Alibaba.