China fires back at U.S. AI safety warnings, calling

What happened

S. AI leaders. " Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called for "open, inclusive, universally beneficial and ethical" AI development in Beijing (via Bloomberg). "Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition" would disrupt global AI governance and serve no one's interests, he said. The Global Times accused Amodei of waging a "silent AI Cold War" to stifle China's tech progress.

Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk had all previously pushed for slowing advanced AI development. "Pacing" doesn't mean "stopping," according to Altman: "Progress has been rapid and will continue to be. S. S. government itself opposes a slowdown. The only remaining option would be to build the most powerful AI system possible as fast as possible, much like the Cold War arms race.

Why it matters

Amodei had called for action against "distillation," the practice of using outputs from American AI models to train competing systems. 5-Cyber as models capable of finding vulnerabilities and creating malware. S. tech leaders, Chen pushed for more research into advanced chips, faster AI infrastructure buildout, and tighter supervision instead of a slowdown.

What to watch

Tsinghua researcher Sun Chenghao says Beijing worries Washington could invoke safety or national security concerns to justify broader tech restrictions. S. advantage. S. President Trump had already made clear that he rejects a voluntary AI slowdown, especially given the race with China. He argued tech leaders were describing worst-case scenarios that won't happen. The debate comes just ahead of the planned Trump-Xi summit on September 24.