For Graylin, aiming for the United States to reach China’s artificial superintelligence first would represent the “biggest AI security threat to the United States,” and is obstructing cooperation that would help both countries prepare for real and imminent risks from AI. These include threats to workers, national economies and national security.
“The most dangerous models are often those smaller, more specialized ones that could be created or used by rogue non-state actors for the purpose of deploying biological, chemical, or cyber weapons,” Graylin wrote. “The assumption of a conflict between the United States and China prevents exact global cooperation to protect against this very real threat.”
Graylin suggested that the United States could take steps to ease the global public’s fears about AI, but some of them could seem extreme in Trump’s eyes.
In addition to sharing high-level intelligence and opening “bilateral and multilateral channels on AI safety,” Trump could consider restoring Joe Biden’s “small yard” and relaxing a widening range of export controls that are likely preventing China from conducting better safety testing. If export controls were reduced to block only access to “genuine military and CBRNE threats” and “not all advanced technology,” then China could deploy safer AI products, he suggested.
Additionally, Trump could consider following China’s lead and softening his AI deregulation stance. By enacting reasonable safety regulations, it could possibly begin to “diminish the growing social fear about AI that has been brewing nationally,” which Graylin wrote, “will surely hamper the nation’s ability to effectively deploy this technology in the economy and reduce our global competitiveness.”
“We cannot manage the multifaceted risks of the most powerful technology in human history while refusing to talk to the other nation building it,” Graylin wrote.
In a perfect world, this week’s meeting between Trump and Xi would one day lead to the United States abandoning this “winning an AI race” narrative, Graylin said.
“There is no way to compete for a safer world,” he told Ars.
