China has rejected calls from U.S. technology leaders to slow the development of advanced artificial intelligence, arguing that the warnings are less about protecting humanity and more about limiting China’s progress in the global AI race.
Beijing described the recent warnings as “fearmongering” and part of a “Cold War playbook,” signaling that competition between China and the United States may continue to outweigh efforts to coordinate on AI safety.
The criticism came after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on AI companies to deliberately slow the pace at which they improve their most powerful models because of potential security and societal risks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX founder Elon Musk also backed parts of the push for stronger safeguards.
Amodei also argued that a Chinese lead in artificial intelligence could create serious risks for the United States and called for tighter U.S. restrictions on exports of key technologies to China.
China strongly rejected that framing.
“Fearmongering, confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve no one’s interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday.
China’s state-run Global Times went further, describing proposals for an industrywide slowdown as an attempt to contain China and calling them a “Cold War playbook” for the AI sector.
The dispute comes as AI systems continue to improve rapidly in capability while governments and companies struggle to keep safety measures moving at the same pace.