(Bloomberg) -- China's top intelligence official delivered one of Beijing's most detailed warnings yet about AI, saying rapid advances in the technology could threaten political stability and critical infrastructure.
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Abusive use of AI by adversaries could "directly threaten China's political security, institutional security and ideological security," State Security Minister Chen Yixin wrote in an article posted Sunday on the official China Cyberspace magazine. He also cited AI's increasing ability at discovering flaws in systems and creating malware or software to exploit those weaknesses.
The article represents one of the clearest accounts to date on how China assesses the dangers posed by AI. It appeared as leaders of top US technology firms urged a more measured pace of development, although there is no sign the timing was coordinated. The piece made no mention of the calls by Anthropic PBC and OpenAI to slow down the pursuit of cutting-edge models.
Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei has argued in a blog post on Saturday that AI capabilities are outpacing safeguards and proposed coordination between companies, the US and other democracies. Chen also emphasized safety in his article, but he views the risks mainly through the lenses of political control, technological sovereignty, foreign threats and strategic rivalry.
At the top of Beijing's concerns is the potential for what Chen described as "hostile forces" to wage "public-opinion wars" and "cognitive warfare." Deepfakes, AI-generated text and images, and social media bots could be used to fabricate political rumors, spread harmful information and incite social divisions, he wrote in the magazine managed by the Cyberspace Administration of China.
AI-powered web crawlers, data mining and profiling systems could strengthen foreign intelligence agencies' ability to collect sensitive information, including state data, trade secrets and personal information, according to the article.
Chen also warned that countries with an advantage in AI may invoke national security to impose technology controls, "monopolize" industry standards and build closed-source ecosystems, echoing Chinese President Xi Jinping's stated opposition to stretching the concept of national security in a July speech.