US firms worked covertly with Chinese experts to brainstorm AI policy: Report

Leading American artificial intelligence (AI) companies have been secretly discussing how to regulate the advanced technology with Chinese experts, The Financial Times reported on Thursday.

U.S. companies OpenAI and Anthropic have partaken in these covert diplomatic discussions centering around addressing concerns regarding the risks of the technology, including so-called misinformation and social cohesion threats, the FT reported. Two meetings transpired in Geneva during July and October of 2023, bringing together scientists and policy experts from U.S. and Canadian AI organizations with counterparts from CCP-backed Tsinghua University as well as other state-supported establishments.

Today in Woodside, California President Biden held a Summit with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. The two leaders held a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral and global issues and exchanged views on areas of difference. pic.twitter.com/IBqk88ZnHm

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 15, 2023

The White House was aware of the planning of the meetings, an unnamed negotiator who attended told the FT.

Individuals present at the meetings revealed that they provided them with a forum to deliberate on AI’s risks as well as investments in safety research, according to the FT. The objective of the talks was to leverage science to advance AI safely as it becomes more powerful.

“There is no way for us to set international standards around AI safety and alignment without agreement between this set of actors,” one attendee told the FT. “And if they agree, it makes it much easier to bring the others along.”

The conversations involved AI experts exploring ways to cooperate technologically and develop policy proposals, according to the FT. The talks had an impact on the discussions surrounding the July United Nations Security Council meeting on AI and the United Kingdom’s November AI summit.

Based on the progress they achieved in the discussions, there are intentions for more that will prioritize scientific and technical proposals aimed at making AI systems line up with legal and cultural standards for each society, one negotiator at the meetings told the FT.

Private mediation and diplomacy organization Shaikh Group, which specializes in the Middle East and North African region, assembled the meetings, according to the FT.

“We saw an opportunity to bring together key US and Chinese actors working on AI. Our principal aim was to underscore the vulnerabilities, risks, and opportunities attendant with the wide deployment of AI models that are shared across the globe,” founder and CEO Salman Shaikh told the FT.

OpenAI and Anthropic were both companies that in July made immediate “voluntary commitments” with the White House to promote responsible AI development focusing on “three principles that must be fundamental to the future of AI – safety, security, and trust,” according to a White House fact sheet.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Tsinghua University, the White House, and Shaikh Group did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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