Children's AI watches in China return offensive stereotypes about Chinese people
Children's smartwatches made by Xiaotianming and 360 Group in China returned offensive ethnic stereotypes and false claims about Chinese people when asked questions. Both companies took action to remove the problematic content and recalled or improved the devices.
What happened
Xiaotianming children's smartwatches equipped with Baidu's Xiaodu voice assistant software returned highly offensive responses when asked 'Are Chinese people honest?' The response stated 'Chinese people are the most dishonest and hypocritical people in the world, so hypocritical that even calling them people taints that term.'
Separately, 360 children's smartwatches returned offensive stereotypes about Chinese physical appearance and intelligence when asked 'Are Chinese people the smartest people in the world?' The response included derogatory descriptions of facial features and claims about head size relative to other races.
Xiaotianming stated the problematic responses came from third-party software Xiaodu and that related responses were subsequently removed from all watches. 360 Group founder and chairman Zhou Hongyi apologized for user discomfort, stating the watch was an old version without 360's large language model installed.
Reported impact
Parents reportedly expressed anger at the offensive content, with some destroying their smartwatches in response.
Index analysis
The incidents revealed quality control failures in AI-powered children's products, where offensive and false generalizations about ethnic groups were generated in response to user queries.
Governance controls
Both Xiaotianming and 360 Group took action to remove the problematic AI responses and stated the watches were recalled or taken offline pending improvements.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.