China Is Flirting With AI Catastrophe
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China's CCP Warns of AI Risks
Last updated May 31, 2023
Image credit: China News Service [via Wikimedia Commons]Facts
- Following a meeting chaired by President and party leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday, China's ruling Communist Party has called for heightened national security measures while warning about the risks posed by advances in artificial intelligence (AI).[1]
- The first gathering of the National Security Commission under the 20th CCP Central Committee urged staunch efforts to enhance the security governance of internet data and AI, as well as the establishment of a risk monitoring and early warning system.[2]
- State news agency Xinhua reported that Xi demanded top Chinese security officials adhere to "bottom-line" and "worst-case-scenario thinking" to prepare for "stormy seas" ahead of perceived internal and external threats.[3]
- He reportedly argued the country needs a "new pattern of development with a new security architecture," prompting speculations that Beijing could be worried about AI being exploited for sabotage and spying.[4]
- Despite its goal to seize global leadership in cutting-edge technologies, the latest moves expose that the PRC is concerned about the potential social and political harms of the fast-developing, unregulated field of AI.[5]
- This comes as, on Tuesday, experts — including the CEOs of OpenAI and Google DeepMind — issued a call to action, warning of the existential threat of AI and calling for its risks to be given equal global attention as pandemics and nuclear war.[6]
Spin
Anti-China narrative
The fact that Beijing has shown awareness of AI risks doesn't mean that the government will give up its ambition to outdo the US in such technology, but rather that it will force companies to be subservient while suppressing any information that potentially threatens the regime. Aside from the inevitable criminal use of AI tools in Xinjiang, China's low accountability for accidents is likely to produce an AI catastrophe.
Pro-China narrative
While China perceives AI as an empowering technology that contributes to a better future for humankind and the global good, it recognizes that it will bring with it safety and security challenges. It's exactly to reduce risks and maximize benefits that Beijing has been calling for international AI governance with shared responsibilities.
Nerd narrative
There's an 85% chance that Metaculus will predict that artificial intelligence continues to pose a global catastrophic risk by 2040, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
