Trump’s China rivalry and “AI race” delusion may endanger US, experts say

专家称：特朗普的对华竞争与“AI竞赛”错觉可能危及美国

This week, the US and China, the two world leaders on AI, finally started talks meant to keep the whole world safe from emerging safety risks. But whether meetings between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping can lead to a reliable global governance framework for AI depends on how much the fierce rivals are actually willing to cooperate. 本周，作为人工智能领域的两大全球领导者，美中两国终于开启了旨在保护全球免受新兴安全风险影响的对话。然而，唐纳德·特朗普与习近平之间的会晤能否促成一个可靠的全球人工智能治理框架，取决于这两大激烈竞争对手究竟有多大的合作意愿。

It’s clear Trump wants it to seem like discussions are going well. Before Trump and Xi meet on Thursday and Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that both sides had already discussed setting up a new AI safety notification mechanism. If China agrees to participate, that would create an open line for either side to send alerts when their country’s AI systems pose threats or behave unpredictably. The same channel, Bessent said, could allow the countries to share their “vision of common goals.” 显然，特朗普希望外界认为双方的讨论进展顺利。在特朗普与习近平周四和周五会晤前，财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）宣布，双方已讨论建立一种新的人工智能安全通报机制。如果中国同意参与，这将为双方建立一条公开渠道，以便在各自的人工智能系统构成威胁或表现出不可预测的行为时发出警报。贝森特表示，同一渠道还可以让两国分享其“共同目标的愿景”。

However, the proposal comes at a time when China may not be ready to trust the US to have AI safety conversations that aren’t about limiting China’s capabilities. Not only has Trump steadily increased export controls that explicitly seek to block China from accessing technology to advance AI, but Congress is mulling bills that would cut the country off from more chips and hardware. Adding to tensions, just two weeks ago, Trump’s Justice Department accused six of China’s leading AI makers of stealing from US frontier labs, which China has strongly disputed. 然而，这一提议提出的时机，正值中国可能尚未准备好信任美国，认为其进行的AI安全对话并非旨在限制中国的发展能力。特朗普不仅稳步加强了旨在明确阻止中国获取先进人工智能技术的出口管制，国会也在酝酿相关法案，试图切断中国获取更多芯片和硬件的途径。加剧紧张局势的是，就在两周前，特朗普的司法部指控六家中国领先的AI制造商窃取美国前沿实验室的技术，中国对此予以强烈反驳。

Some US-China experts told Ars that there were concerns that China might cancel talks, but China seemingly isn’t taking offense to Trump’s rhetoric. Even Truth Social posts where Trump insists that America must dominate China on AI—declaring “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so”—didn’t keep China from showing up. Notably, China has yet to publicly acknowledge the proposed alert system. 一些美中问题专家告诉《Ars》，人们曾担心中国可能会取消会谈，但中国似乎并未对特朗普的言论感到冒犯。即使在特朗普坚称美国必须在人工智能领域主导中国，并宣称“谁赢得了人工智能，谁就赢得了未来！我们正在领先中国及其他所有国家，并将继续保持领先”的“真实社交”（Truth Social）帖文发布后，中国依然如约出席。值得注意的是，中国尚未公开承认这一提议中的预警系统。

Even if China bought into the system, people familiar with Bessent’s plan told Politico that the plan to monitor safety alerts appears superficial, since it involves no officials with technical expertise who could be trusted to assess the urgency of risks described in communications. Describing the significance of the arrangement, one source mocked the plan, saying “the scientific, technical term is BS.” 即便中国接受了该系统，熟悉贝森特计划的人士告诉《Politico》，该监测安全警报的计划似乎流于表面，因为它不涉及任何具备技术专长的官员，无法评估通信中所述风险的紧迫性。在描述该安排的重要性时，一位消息人士嘲讽道：“用科学技术术语来说，这就是胡扯（BS）。”

Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at a Georgetown University think tank called the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, monitors national security applications of AI and US-China tech competition. He agreed it’s a red flag that there’s no tech body of tech experts monitoring the channel. “It’s an existing channel, which I think is better than creating a whole new channel,” Bresnick told Ars. But if both sides had tech experts, the US and China could have really high-level conversations about how they’re assessing risk. That’s particularly important when discussing military risks, Bresnick emphasized. “I think it’s better than nothing for sure, but I don’t have a lot of confidence that that is going to make a major difference going forward,” Bresnick said. 乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心（CSET）的研究员萨姆·布雷斯尼克（Sam Bresnick）负责监测人工智能的国家安全应用及美中科技竞争。他认同缺乏技术专家组来监测该渠道是一个危险信号。“这是一个现有的渠道，我认为这比创建一个全新的渠道要好，”布雷斯尼克告诉《Ars》。但如果双方都有技术专家，美中两国就能就如何评估风险进行真正高水平的对话。布雷斯尼克强调，在讨论军事风险时，这一点尤为重要。“我认为这肯定比什么都没有要好，但我对它在未来能产生重大影响并没有太大信心，”布雷斯尼克说。

Low expectations for Trump talks

对特朗普会谈的低预期

Su Lian Jye, a chief analyst at a global technology research and advisory group called Omdia, told the South China Morning Post that the AI alerts may help “promote more transparency,” but it won’t make either side less wary of the other. “I don’t think the dialog will remove all concerns and differences on distillation, pricing competition, and pacing,” Su said. Praising the plan as a good start to open dialogues, Su suggested that much more cooperation would be needed to make the safety mechanism meaningful. “Turning the proposal into an effective tool would require both countries to agree on risk classifications, notification triggers, response protocols, and regular review procedures,” he said. 全球技术研究与咨询机构Omdia的首席分析师苏连杰（Su Lian Jye）告诉《南华早报》，人工智能预警可能有助于“促进更高的透明度”，但这不会减少双方对彼此的戒心。“我不认为对话能消除双方在蒸馏（模型）、价格竞争和发展节奏上的所有担忧和分歧，”苏说。他称赞该计划是开启对话的良好开端，并建议需要更多的合作才能使安全机制具有实际意义。“要将该提议转化为有效工具，需要两国就风险分类、通报触发条件、响应协议和定期审查程序达成一致，”他说。

Perhaps that will come up when Trump and Xi meet later this week, with AI supposedly at the top of the agenda. It’s unclear what will be discussed, but critics concerned about the most urgent AI safety risks fear that Bessent’s announcement indicates that Trump has modest ambitions for the summit. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” US Representative Ro Khanna—the ranking Democrat on the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party—suggested that talks between Trump and Xi should go much further than setting up a line between two officials with no tech expertise. He argued Trump should be asking Xi for an international agreement that urgently includes “banning any recursive self-improving AI” and “safeguards so that AI can’t be misused by people for biological nuclear weapons.” 也许这会在特朗普和习近平本周晚些时候会晤时被提及，届时人工智能据称将是议程的首要议题。目前尚不清楚具体会讨论什么，但担心最紧迫人工智能安全风险的批评人士担心，贝森特的声明表明特朗普对此次峰会的抱负有限。在哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）的《面对国家》（Face the Nation）节目中，美国众议员罗·康纳（Ro Khanna）——美国众议院美中战略竞争特设委员会的民主党领袖——建议，特朗普与习近平之间的会谈应远不止于在两名缺乏技术专长的官员之间建立一条热线。他主张特朗普应要求习近平达成一项国际协议，其中应紧急包括“禁止任何递归自我改进的人工智能”以及“确保人工智能不会被人类滥用于生物或核武器的保障措施”。

China suspicious of AI safety talks

中国对人工智能安全对话持怀疑态度

Many experts described sharing safety alerts as a decent first step in improving US-China coordination on AI, which Trump’s incoming “AI czar” could then possibly build on. Alvin Wang Graylin, a global technology strategist and digital fellow at Stanford Digital Economy Lab, has spent decades weighing geopolitical risks. Most recently, he’s advised governments and tech leaders on AI policy and global governance, including sharing recommendations on how to set up a notification system like the one Bessent proposed. Graylin told Ars that he was surprised to see that such a “positive” development had already come out of this week’s talks with China. And it seemed encouraging that both countries already have another meeting scheduled in November. “What that shows is that both sides are seeing value in the discussion,” Graylin said. “Otherwise, there would not be a follow-on.” 许多专家将分享安全警报描述为改善美中人工智能协调的良好第一步，特朗普即将上任的“人工智能沙皇”随后可能在此基础上进一步发展。斯坦福数字经济实验室的全球技术战略家兼数字研究员阿尔文·王·格雷林（Alvin Wang Graylin）几十年来一直在权衡地缘政治风险。最近，他为各国政府和科技领袖提供人工智能政策和全球治理方面的建议，包括就如何建立像贝森特所提议的那种通知系统分享建议。格雷林告诉《Ars》，他很惊讶地看到本周与中国的会谈已经取得了如此“积极”的进展。两国已经安排在11月进行另一次会晤，这似乎令人鼓舞。“这表明双方都看到了讨论的价值，”格雷林说。“否则，就不会有后续行动了。”

Graylin suggested the US and China share many AI risks. Not just the supposedly existential risk that AI leaders started recently claiming required a slowdown, but also risks from bad actors like hackers or terrorists wielding AI to attack either country’s infrastructure. There’s much that the US and China can learn from each other. 格雷林认为，美中两国面临许多共同的人工智能风险。这不仅包括人工智能领袖最近开始声称需要放缓发展的所谓生存风险，还包括黑客或恐怖分子利用人工智能攻击两国基础设施等恶意行为带来的风险。美中两国可以从彼此身上学到很多东西。