China Criticizes US Big Tech Calls to Slow AI Development, Says They Stoke Fear and Toxic Competition

China has publicly criticized calls by leading US artificial intelligence executives to slow the pace of AI development.

At a regular briefing on September 14, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said countries should promote AI development that is open, inclusive, universally beneficial and ethical, Bloomberg reported.

Responding to arguments by US AI executives for slowing development, and to claims that China’s AI lead could threaten US national security, Guo said stoking fear, confrontation and toxic competition only disrupts the process of global AI governance and helps no one.

Earlier, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that safeguards were not keeping pace with advances in AI technology and that development of the most advanced AI models should be slowed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agreed with Amodei’s proposal to give an independent evaluation body access comparable to that of employees, and Elon Musk also backed the idea.

Guo did not provide a specific position on proposals to slow AI development or strengthen independent oversight.

Chinese state media also joined the criticism of Amodei. The Global Times said on September 14 that he was waging a "quiet AI cold war" to curb China’s technological progress.

Amodei has also called for restricting China’s access to advanced semiconductors and for tighter enforcement against "distillation," the use of outputs from US AI models to train competing models.

China is also stepping up warnings about the security risks posed by AI. Chen Yixin, China’s minister of state security, warned on September 13 that hostile forces’ misuse of AI could threaten the country’s political and ideological security as well as critical infrastructure.