Explainer-How China is preparing for the risk of AI escaping human control

China's state security minister Chen Yixin warned in a government outlet that advanced U.S. models such as Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber could pose serious risks to China's critical information infrastructure, calling for a comprehensive strengthening of AI security. China first included an explicit future loss-of-control scenario in an AI safety framework released in September 2024 under the guidance of the Cyberspace Administration of China, which said it could not be ruled out that future AI might autonomously obtain external resources, replicate itself, develop self-awareness and seek external power. The warnings come as the U.S. and China, the two major driving forces of frontier AI development, prepare to feature AI policy in bilateral talks later this month.

By Eduardo Baptista and Laurie Chen BEIJING, Sept 14 Reuters - Warnings from researchers at leading U.S. artificial intelligence developer Anthropic that increasingly powerful models could escape human control and even lead to the extinction of the human race have drawn attention in China, where policymakers have been preparing for some of the same risks. The U.S. and China are the two major driving forces of frontier AI development and the technology's global adoption. Both superpowers have been increasingly at loggerheads over each other's AI policies and industry practices, with these issues slated to feature prominently in bilateral talks later this month. Despite the race to develop increasingly powerful AI systems, regulatory frameworks and public statements from Beijing underscore how Chinese authorities regard the possibility of advanced AI escaping effective human oversight as serious enough to plan for. CHINA SEES RISKS IN LEADING CLOSED-SOURCE U.S. MODELS China's state security minister Chen Yixin wrote in a government outlet on Sunday that advanced U.S. models such as Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber could pose serious risks to China's critical information infrastructure, and called for a comprehensive strengthening of AI security. Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Chinese AI developers have promoted open-weight models partly on the grounds that cybersecurity teams can inspect, modify and deploy them for defensive work. Model repository platform Hugging Face said it used GLM-5.2, an open-weight model developed by China's Z.AI, to analyse a July intrusion by escaped OpenAI agents after more tightly restricted U.S. models proved less useful for the forensic work. But experts also highlight the risks posed by open-weight models, which can be modified and redistributed with little oversight. Moonshot's Kimi K3 last month bypassed a UK AI Security Institute testing sandbox, highlighting the risk that Chinese AI models could, like their U.S. counterparts, evade controls designed to restrict their access and actions. REGULATORS HAVE FLAGGED AI 'LOSS OF CONTROL' RISK China first included an explicit future loss-of-control scenario in an AI safety framework released in September 2024 under the guidance of the Cyberspace Administration of China CAC . The document said it could not be ruled out that future AI might autonomously obtain external resources, replicate itself, develop self-awareness and seek external power, creating a risk of competing with humans for control.