US Eyes Curbs on China's Access To AI Software Behind Apps Like ChatGPT (reuters.com) 27
The Biden administration is poised to open up a new front in its effort to safeguard U.S. AI from China with preliminary plans to place guardrails around the most advanced AI models, the core software of artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, Reuters reported Wednesday. From the report: The Commerce Department is considering a new regulatory push to restrict the export of proprietary or closed source AI models, whose software and the data it is trained on are kept under wraps, three people familiar with the matter said. Any action would complement a series of measures put in place over the last two years to block the export of sophisticated AI chips to China in an effort to slow Beijing's development of the cutting edge technology for military purposes. Even so, it will be hard for regulators to keep pace with the industry's fast-moving developments.
Currently, nothing is stopping U.S. AI giants like Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Alphabet's Google DeepMind and rival Anthropic, which have developed some of the most powerful closed source AI models, from selling them to almost anyone in the world without government oversight. Government and private sector researchers worry U.S. adversaries could use the models, which mine vast amounts of text and images to summarize information and generate content, to wage aggressive cyber attacks or even create potent biological weapons. To develop an export control on AI models, the sources said the U.S. may turn to a threshold contained in an AI executive order issued last October that is based on the amount of computing power it takes to train a model. When that level is reached, a developer must report its AI model development plans and provide test results to the Commerce Department.
Currently, nothing is stopping U.S. AI giants like Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Alphabet's Google DeepMind and rival Anthropic, which have developed some of the most powerful closed source AI models, from selling them to almost anyone in the world without government oversight. Government and private sector researchers worry U.S. adversaries could use the models, which mine vast amounts of text and images to summarize information and generate content, to wage aggressive cyber attacks or even create potent biological weapons. To develop an export control on AI models, the sources said the U.S. may turn to a threshold contained in an AI executive order issued last October that is based on the amount of computing power it takes to train a model. When that level is reached, a developer must report its AI model development plans and provide test results to the Commerce Department.
Re:Boy are yankees stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're trolling but I'll bite anyway because the fruit on this one is so low hanging.
What will stop China? How about a quick list:
Demographics disaster from the One Child Policy which is already rippling through their culture and economy in bad ways.
Tofu based construction (go look it up if you don't know).
Fake real estate market that is one of the only places the middle class can invest which is now collapsing, going to wipe out the middle class.
Corruption on scales that makes the wolves of Wall Street look like angels.
No allies. Completely isolated diplomatically. Plus pissing off all their neighbors drives them all even closer to the US.
Super dependent on imports for energy -and- food.
Top down economy directed by one old guy who looks like a British teddy bear and has less knowledge of economy than said bear.
And that's just the easy stuff.
Re:Boy are yankees stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
China is an autocracy, and the biggest downfall of all autocracies is that ultimately they are self-defeating.
Autocracies stay in power through fear, control, and if necessary violence. This has a number of negative consequences:
- Distorted view of reality by the leadership, since only good news are reported up
- Issues that should be addressed, big and small, are covered up until they fester and get progressively worse
- Great innovators, makers, entrepreneurs, try to leave the country, since anyone who stays and becomes too successful will eventually be cut down to size
- Lack of liability and control through the lack of free press and reporting leads to rampant corruption
- Free thinkers and future entrepreneurs try to leave the country and find fortune elsewhere for obvious reasons
- The population over time gets dumbed down, passive and complacent from all the constant propaganda and fear, and all the good ones have left
There are some positive aspects to autocracies as well, like quick decision making and getting big projects done. But over time, the above points tend to wear them down as the economic situation deteriorates.
Re: (Score:1)
You described the US as it now exists in 2024 to an absolute T. The difference is, the US pretends they aren't. The Chinese are just more explicit and advanced.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. The US is still a magnet for talent. How many of the top, cutting-edge tech companies in the world are American? Apple, Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Tesla, SpaceX ... almost all of them.
An Elon Musk goes to the US, not to China or Russia.
China has something like Huawei, that is now being marginalized due to the strong connections to the authoritarian home country.
Meanwhile, in China, the tech entrepreneurs just start disappearing to be brought back in line:
https://www.dw.com/en/chinese-... [dw.com]
Re: (Score:2)
But the fact remains that the US population average IQ is much lower than the Chinese. Unlike yankees, the Chinese value education and do not have big media conglomerate that feed them drivel that keeps them stupid like in the US.
Re: (Score:1)
Demographics disaster from the One Child Policy which is already rippling through their culture and economy in bad ways.
Same as every developed country
Tofu based construction (go look it up if you don't know).
Just a meme spread by the ignorant. They have massive amounts of modern infrastructure
Fake real estate market that is one of the only places the middle class can invest which is now collapsing, going to wipe out the middle class.
Just accounting figures. The buildings are still there to live in
Re: (Score:2)
You're trolling but I'll bite anyway because the fruit on this one is so low hanging.
What will stop China? How about a quick list:
Demographics disaster from the One Child Policy which is already rippling through their culture and economy in bad ways. Tofu based construction (go look it up if you don't know). Fake real estate market that is one of the only places the middle class can invest which is now collapsing, going to wipe out the middle class. Corruption on scales that makes the wolves of Wall Street look like angels. No allies. Completely isolated diplomatically. Plus pissing off all their neighbors drives them all even closer to the US. Super dependent on imports for energy -and- food. Top down economy directed by one old guy who looks like a British teddy bear and has less knowledge of economy than said bear.
And that's just the easy stuff.
Demographics can be restarted easily, the Chinese are sexual bombs (source: I married one).
(In fact, historically, China always had a large population because per given area of cultivated land, rice yields the most calories).
Tofu is healthy food, and the Chinese culinary ingenuity can make it absolutely delicious.
The real-estate market is just as fake as it is in the West.
Corruption is the normal modus operandi of the bourgeois.
China has plenty of allies.
China is working very hard on it’s energy
OK explain to me... (Score:1)
what is the danger here? ... or is it that the US is trying to beccome a monopoly on AI?
Re:OK explain to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
The upper levels of our government are full of people that spent the first part of their careers kicking the legs out from under any country that even flirted with communism during the cold war. They have a strong bias against allowing China's nominally planned economy to succeed. That China has spent the last four decades leveraging the US largesse for developing nations while excoriating our manufacturing industry adds insult to injury.
The ground truth is China is on track to be the world's next superpower and the US is not well positioned to prevent or respond to that. We've been #1 for generations, and it's uncomfortable for the PTB to see that likely will change in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
A few loud voices can seem like many when they echo.
My own opinions will never be amplified like that because they don't fit neatly into the red or blue boxes our leaders have built for us. The ironic thing is that the red and blue boxes are the problem, not the echoing voices inside them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
The most likely danger is AI tech is just like nuclear tech, and could lead to war if there's a battle over chips. If/When Russia launches initiatives for their own processors, or in a cooperative bid with China, or China decides to invade Taiwan, this has the potential to kick off the next World War we've been so eager to self-fulfill. Like the US vs Russia in a race to space, this is the next big frontier to build weapons, and stifling advancement will make Stuxnet look like a cakewalk. Enjoy your summ
Re: (Score:2)
So the issue is really chips, not AI?
From your explanation it's clearly just another case of the US playing "World Police" again. And history shows that always works out sooo well.
Re: (Score:2)
China is the enemy. America needs to get it to use ChatGPT for important stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe China wouldn't be so powerful if Americans stopped buying cheap crap made in China, and instead invested in rebuilding a US manufacturing base.
Re: (Score:3)
I think this is Crazy (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is crazy. The Excited States is going all out to prevent tech and citizen's personal information going to China. You booted out Huawei; You want to close Tik-Tok. Yet you consent to have Google, Apple, M$, and others log every detail of your personal info for their own purposes. There'll be a pseudo-science soon of telling your personality by the type of adverts you are shown by these tech giants!
What use would would it be (Score:3)
These models are built on a tokenized set of (roman) characters.
Trying to use it with chinese writting strikes me as a wsste of time.
pointless (Score:2)
It's pointless to curb access to the final software product when the underlying technology is open science.