Days after America’s leading tech companies warned world on AI, China’s spy agency sends a new alert
China’s Ministry of State Security has outlined threats the technology presented, including to China’s cyber defences, sensitive data and military apparatus, according to a Financial Times report. Instead, state security minister Chen Yixin said “Hostile forces and people with ulterior motives are abusing generative AI technologies such as deepfake audio and video, AI-generated text and images, and ‘intelligent troll armies’ to cheaply and on a mass scale fabricate political rumours, disseminate harmful information and incite divisive sentiments”. “These activities constitute an attack on public opinion and cognitive warfare against China, directly threatening our political security, institutional security and ideological security,” he added as quoted in the FT report. Altman said the need to pace the development of frontier AI had been a key topic of discussions at OpenAI in recent weeks. “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman said in a post on X.
Days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei voiced alarm over the pace of frontier AI model, China’s spy agency has issued a new alert. However, unlike US tech companies, China’s spy agency’s alert did not contain warnings that AI could cause human extinction and did not call on Chinese companies to slow their work in the area. As mentioned above, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently called on AI companies to slow the pace of development of increasingly powerful AI models, warning that unchecked progress could make the technology harder for humans to understand and control. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain,” Amodei wrote in an essay published on his personal website published last week. His call received support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla chief Elon Musk. “Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. Elon Musk also endorsed Amodei’s proposal, writing: “Dario is right. Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.