alt Hacker NewsWhat backward logic is this? PRC doesn't give a fuck about how US regulates AI companies. Pushing more regulation would ensure that Chinese companies catch up sooner. If you think otherwise you need to think harder.
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The original topic was Anthropic's guardrails, which were meant in part to stop China from using Anthropic's models to bootstrap their own. I take it the logic of the comment was that pulling attention to Anthropic's stance on regulation is switching to the topic. But for what it's worth, I also think that people are way to quick to assume that strong regulations would only help China and thereby hurt safety. There are many reasons why the opposite may be true: - reducing demand for Chinese models reduces the incentive for Chinese companies to make them - if US companies can't use Chinese models, they won't have an incentive to help their development - China may enact similar regulations if the US leads, either out of concern for US safety or for commercial reasons
Also, I think some similar things can be said about AI safety measures in China aside from regulation. Currently, the US leads in model safeguards, but it isn't like China has zero interest in AI safety. Even if the US and China are rivals, there are many points of common interest (biorisk and "sci-fi" scenarios like an AI takeover, to name just two).
It's a good thing you weren't in charge of nuclear arsenals during the Cold War, sounds like your approach would have been unchecked proliferation.
Fortunately developing frontier models takes immense amounts of specific resources and knowledge. There are only a handful of companies capable of developing new cutting edge models. This is an area a few governments absolutely could coordinate on and regulate, if they were so inclined.
Obviously the current US administration is completely lacking both the will and competence to actually negotiate an agreement like that with China, and who knows if Xi would even be interested. But with different leadership we actually could be reducing our existential risks in this area much more than we are. Just like having a few thousands nukes across several countries isn't totally safe, but it's a heck of a lot safer than hundreds of thousands of nukes spread across a hundred countries.