Policy & Drama

I Met With China’s Top AI Experts. They’re Freaking Out, Too

The AI arms race between China and the US has researchers on both sides worried about a “Chernobyl moment.”

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The author attended an AI conference in Beijing where conversations with top Chinese AI researchers revealed shared concerns about risks from rapidly advancing artificial intelligence systems. Both US and Chinese AI experts worry that frontier AI models could cause catastrophic failures or be weaponized for cyberattacks unless the world's two dominant AI powers cooperate on safety, despite their ongoing economic and national security competition. The US currently restricts China's access to advanced AI chips and has blocked foreign nationals from using its most powerful models for security reasons, but researchers argue that international collaboration on AI dangers is necessary to prevent disaster. The tension centers on how to balance openness in AI research, which benefits innovation, with security risks as models become more capable and could potentially be used as cyber weapons or help identify system vulnerabilities.

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