Pentagon: It's Silly to Make Deal with China to Slow Down on AI, We Won't Have a Big Deal

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering and Department of War Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael discussed the prospect of a deal with China on AI by saying that “If you’re ahead, and the number 2 says sure, we’ll do a treaty that slows you down”, that doesn’t make sense and “I think the notion that there’s going to be some grand action here is crazy.”

Host Martha MacCallum asked, “The president is about to meet with President Xi. Is there any indication that China has any actual good interest in sitting down and regulating, globally, the brakes on AI? Do you believe that?”

Michael answered, “This is the extreme naivete of some of these companies, particularly Anthropic, that there’s going to be some grand nuclear-like treaty for AI that happens in a day on a visit, especially when the U.S. is ahead. If you’re ahead, and the number 2 says sure, we’ll do a treaty that slows you down, great. It’s sort of very — extremely naive, not to mention counterproductive for Americans. So, I think the notion that there’s going to be some grand action here is crazy. Even the Chinese came out today and said we don’t agree with Dario’s proposal, in particular. So, I think this is sort of fantasyland.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett