Every powerful technology eventually poses the same question: will it expand freedom or suppress it? AI is forcing the United States and our democratic allies to confront a hard reality: we are in a close contest with China, the world’s foremost authoritarian power, and whoever shapes AI will shape the 21st century.
At this year’s World AI Conference in Shanghai, Chinese leader Xi Jinping called open-source AI, which is freely available and increasingly dominated by Chinese companies, a “rare historic opportunity” to shape the technology’s development on China’s terms. A recent Reuters investigation found Chinese researchers are extracting data from leading American AI models to build systems for surveillance, cyberwarfare, drones and other military applications.
American AI is fueling China’s military machine.
White House science adviser Michael Kratsios has described Chinese activities as industrial-scale extraction campaigns. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was more blunt: “Open source is not open season on American IP.”
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