HONG KONG — Urgent calls for a slowdown in the development of artificial intelligence may cite a grave threat to humanity, but China says the warnings are instead aimed at slowing its progress as America’s rival superpower.
\n\nBeijing on Monday dismissed the intervention from U.S. tech leaders as “fearmongering” and part of a “Cold War playbook.”
\n\nIt’s the latest sign that competition between the two countries could outweigh mounting safety concerns, after President Donald Trump also rebuffed the warnings from industry leaders and said his focus was on beating China on AI.
\n\nThe comments followed a lengthy essay that was published Saturday by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
\n\nAmodei said that companies should deliberately “slow the pace” at which they improve their models given the potential risks. He also said that a “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world,” and called for the U.S. to restrict sales of key tech to China.
\n\nThat message was not welcomed by Beijing.
\n\n“Fearmongering, confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve no one’s interests,” China’s foreign ministry…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/