Donald Trump told reporters on Friday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the security of artificial intelligence during a two-day summit in Beijing. According to Bloomberg. Exactly what safeguards? “The standard guardrails that we always talk about,” he said.
Excellent! Except… no standard guardrails.
AI regulation in the US is a mess. There is a patchwork of state-level laws taking steps to limit some of the more harmful and dangerous uses of AI. California has been is a leader in this field and passed the big AI security bill Last year, though one could argue how effective the legislation is. However, very little meaningful action has been taken at the federal level.
Last year, Trump announced his “AI Action Plan,” offered 90 policy recommendations, none of which matter. Trump has called for AI models to be “unbiased,” meaning they don’t say anything he doesn’t like. To that end, his latest take on AI regulation includes allowed their ignoramuses to review their AI models make sure they are in line with management’s wishes before going public.
Meanwhile, the administration has largely tried to stop any attempts to limit AI. He called many times a “light touch” approach to regulating the industry and there is repeatedly tried to stop the states from adopting its own laws designed to keep AI models compliant. The National Institute of Science and Technology announced A broad framework for considering AI-related riskshowever, it is entirely voluntary.
China has at least given some thought to this matter. publishing multiple AI frameworksincluding the most recent one that considers the risks technology poses to labor and the potential for misuse of weapons. It has also developed some risk mitigation measures aimed at helping regulators in certain sectors consider hazards and develop guidelines to prevent adverse outcomes. But even these are currently optional and not mandatory management.
Meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials could produce a number of more specifics that would move closer to “standard safeguards,” as Trump described them. But so far it’s been a much broader, general conversation than anything specific. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is said to be involved in these talks. According to Reuters. “What we don’t want to do is stifle innovation. So our responsibility is to come up with the highest performance account where we can get the highest level of innovation and the highest level of security,” he said, which makes no sense.
“We want unlimited growth that is also safe.” Yes, great idea. Our best minds are on it, obviously. AI should do all the good things and none of the bad things; will solve everything.
