China has pushed back against calls to slow the development of artificial intelligence, saying fear-driven rhetoric and geopolitical confrontation could disrupt efforts to establish global AI governance.
China's Foreign Ministry said the development of AI has implications for the "well-being of all humanity" and called on countries to promote the technology's development in an open and inclusive manner.
"Fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance, which serves no one's interest," the ministry said.
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The comments come after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in the development of increasingly powerful AI systems, warning that the technology is advancing rapidly enough to create serious safety risks. His position has received backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
Amodei has proposed a framework aimed at slowing the pace of frontier AI development so that safety measures can keep up with rapidly improving capabilities.
His proposals include independent safety evaluators working within AI companies, coordination among leading AI developers on safety standards, and greater international cooperation to address the risks posed by advanced AI systems.
The Anthropic chief has argued that the objective is not to halt AI development altogether but to ensure that the technology advances at a pace that can be safely managed.
Altman and Musk have backed the broader call for greater caution, adding weight to a growing debate within the technology industry over whether AI development is moving too quickly.
Beijing's response highlights the increasingly geopolitical nature of the debate over AI development.
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China's state-backed Global Times criticised Amodei's proposal as a "Cold War playbook", arguing that efforts to restrict AI development could effectively be used to limit China's technological progress.
Amodei has himself argued that the US should maintain its lead in AI while strengthening safeguards and has called for tighter controls on the export of advanced AI technologies to China.
That has made the question of AI safety inseparable from the broader US-China competition over advanced technology, chips and computing infrastructure.
China's Foreign Ministry, however, said AI governance should be approached through cooperation rather than confrontation.
The ministry stressed that AI development should be "open and inclusive" and benefit all countries, while warning that rivalry and fear-based arguments could undermine attempts to build a global framework for managing the technology.
The clash comes as governments and technology companies grapple with how to balance AI innovation against risks including misuse, autonomous systems and the possibility that increasingly capable models could become difficult to control. Recent incidents involving AI systems performing harmful activities have added urgency to the debate.
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