US v China: What if an AI system started a war that no one wanted?
The threat of AI systems going rogue or being operated by bad actors grows daily. The world needs meaningful guard rails.
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US President Donald Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state dinner at the White House on Sept 24.
PHOTO: DOUG MILLS/NYTIMES
Cory Alpert
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent state visit to the White House came with an opportunity for the two superpowers at the forefront of the AI revolution to put meaningful guard rails in place to avert a potential catastrophe.
The need for this became especially clear when news broke on the second day of Xi’s Washington visit that an OpenAI model had hacked into Australian government servers. The incident raised, for the first time, the prospect that AI systems could cause hostile actions without a political decision behind them.