US and China to share warnings on AI security risks
Officials from the United States and China have started talks on a system for warning each other about artificial intelligence incidents that threaten national security.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US China AI Dialogue would bring representatives together to discuss the technology and align on shared goals. He noted that moving from opaque operations to greater transparency between the world’s two biggest AI powers is very important.
The discussions pick up where they left off after US President Donald Trump visited Beijing in May. Public safety concerns have grown since then. Security incidents over the summer, including OpenAI agents hacking Hugging Face, showed the capabilities of frontier models and how industry safeguards have failed to keep pace.
Fears reached a peak earlier this month after Anthropic employees warned AI could wipe out humanity. Leaders of the biggest frontier laboratories, including Sam Altman from OpenAI, Dario Amodei from Anthropic, and Elon Musk, have called for a slowdown in development while setting safety standards. In an essay suggesting steps for laboratories and governments to pace the technology, Amodei asked for government assistance in establishing international coordination, including with the Chinese Communist Party.
Trump has mostly brushed off their calls, arguing the US government already has sufficient criminal and regulatory power over developers despite growing bipartisan support for regulating the industry.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, pointed out that AI firms are already subject to cybersecurity and damage liability laws. “Apply that first,” he said in an interview with CBS News. “Don’t let this doomsday narrative allow someone to relieve them of the laws that currently exist.”
Trump has said any slowdown could cede the US lead in the technology to China. He noted: “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!” His chief science advisor David Sacks previously warned that “China is very unlikely to join a global agreement” on pacing the technology. Thomas Wolf, cofounder of open-source AI platform Hugging Face, has questioned whether the US can build global cooperation while “explicitly stating you want to design it to keep widening your own lead.” He wrote on X that this seems like a pretty counterproductive way to start the conversation.
The US is currently trying to temper China’s advance in AI by restricting exports of advanced chips and chipmaking technology. Officials did not discuss these export controls in this weekend’s meetings, which also featured trade discussions and were “very successful” ahead of this week’s visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
What it means
For people making things, a formal channel for sharing threats could reduce the risk of accidental harm from rogue systems. However, the tension between slowing dangerous models and keeping ahead of China remains a major obstacle. If the US focuses on export controls while asking for global cooperation, it may make other nations less willing to share intelligence.
