The art of not making an AI safety deal with China

The U.S. and China said they would resume official AI safety talks after a two-year halt, with the dialogue possibly occurring this month around an anticipated summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, Reuters reported. The article argues the aim should not be a package deal but mutual visibility into each side's AI fears and risk-management efforts to keep suspicion from escalating.

Silicon Valley leaders keep painting artificial intelligence doomsday scenarios, yet they also can’t stop racing to build and sell it. They often point to China as the reason they have no choice, even as the post-ChatGPT era suggests the fiercest pressure comes from one another. Yet the prevailing assumption is that cooperation with Beijing on frontier AI risks is impossible. It doesn’t help that China itself is often viewed as the AI safety threat. It all culminates in a terrible spot for the rest of us. But there is a narrow opening for something better. After a two-year halt in official AI safety engagement, the U.S. and China said they would resume talks. The dialogue could come this month, Reuters reported, perhaps around the anticipated summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. What would count as success? Not trusting Beijing, and certainly not negotiating some package deal. The aim should be simpler. Each side needs enough visibility into what the other fears about AI’s capabilities, and what it is doing to manage that, to keep suspicion from becoming an excus