China has rebuffed calls from leading US executives to slow the development of frontier artificial intelligence, dismissing the warnings as fearmongering and a thinly veiled attempt to hold back its own progress.
The pushback came after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published a lengthy essay over the weekend urging companies to deliberately slow the pace at which they improve their models, arguing that safeguards were failing to keep up. He also warned that a "Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world," and called for the US to restrict sales of key technology to China. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk both backed the call.
Beijing's response
That message landed badly in Beijing. "Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance which serves no one's interest," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press briefing on Monday.
He said countries should instead promote "open, inclusive, universally beneficial and ethical" AI development. China's state-run Global Times went further, dismissing Amodei's essay as a veiled call to "contain" China.
Guo did not directly address the specific proposals for companies to moderate their pace or submit to independent oversight.
A shared concern, a different playbook
The exchange highlights a widening contest over who sets the rules and timetable for AI. Yet Beijing's dismissal of a slowdown sits awkwardly alongside its own mounting warnings about the technology's risks.
State Security Minister Chen Yixin wrote on Sunday that misuse by adversaries could threaten China's political and ideological security as well as critical infrastructure, pointing to deepfakes and social media bots as tools for "hostile forces". Chen also said China must "accelerate the establishment of a system for preventing and controlling AI security risks."
The two sides are not alone in resisting the industry's safety camp. President Donald Trump on Sunday downplayed calls for his administration to slow development, saying the US was leading China and that "whoever wins AI, wins."
Set for a summit clash
The split leaves industry safety advocates on one side and the world's two dominant AI powers on the other, each prioritising the race over the brakes.
The gap in approach looks set to feature prominently when the two leaders meet. The difference is likely to be a central issue when Xi and Trump meet on 24 September in Washington. Beijing has been promoting an alternative governance track, having floated a World AI Cooperation Organization at the World AI Conference, positioning collaboration as its preferred answer to the safety debate.
