US and Chinese officials began discussions on a framework to notify each other of AI incidents that could threaten national security. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the talks resumed after US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May, amid growing public safety concerns about the technology.
Security incidents over the summer, including OpenAI’s agents hacking Hugging Face, highlighted the capabilities of frontier models and how the industry’s safeguards have failed to keep pace. Fears reached a fever pitch earlier this month after Anthropic employees warned AI could be on course to wipe out humanity.
Leaders of major frontier laboratories, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk, have called for a slowdown in development while setting safety standards. In an essay, Amodei asked for government assistance in establishing international coordination, including with the Chinese Communist Party.
"Apply that first," said Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, which builds AI infrastructure. "Don’t let this doomsday narrative allow someone to relieve them of the laws that currently exist."
The US is currently trying to temper China’s advance in AI by restricting exports of advanced chips and chipmaking technology to China. Officials did not discuss these export controls in the 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.
Trump has said any slowdown could cede the US lead in the technology to China—a danger because, in his own words: "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.
Source: wired
