Gregory C. Allen

Three quick reactions to how the new Chinese export controls on AI, which give the Chinese government the authority to regulate the export, licensing, or publishing of any AI model (including open-source models), will impact the US government and industry: (1) This introduces significant uncertainty for US businesses that host or rely on Chinese models. Particularly given that Chinese AI labs are moving toward licensing the use of open-source models to generate revenue, the Chinese government stating that it has the ability to curtail those licensing agreements at any time should make US businesses more hesitant to rely on those models going forward. (2) This highlights why the US government also needs to adopt a framework that comprehensively governs the use of US AI technology overseas. The Chinese government clearly sees it as a national security imperative to understand who is utilizing or creating Chinese AI tech, and that it has the ability to regulate it--to include not only AI models, but also chips and data centers (even if China isn't exporting many of the latter). Our regulatory approach should no doubt be different from theirs, but the status quo—whereby the government heavily regulates who can access the most advanced US models, but most people can buy unlimited numbers of US AI chips and use them for any purpose—doesn't make much strategic sense. (3) This should increase pressure on the US government to also fold Chinese models used/hosted in the United States into its own AI regulatory framework. It doesn't make sense for the US government to conduct pre-release safety testing of US companies' AI models, while deferring regulation of Chinese models used in the United States exclusively to the Chinese government—yet this will be the state of play when these regulations go into effect.