Biden could limit China’s access to ‘most advanced’ AI – Reuters — RT World News

The White House is considering banning the export of advanced artificial intelligence models — the software that powers systems like ChatGPT — to China, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing government sources.

The sources said that such a ban would be implemented by the US Department of Commerce. In deciding which AI models to ban, they said the ministry would likely calculate the amount of computing power required to train the model, and restrict the export of the most power-hungry, and therefore advanced, versions.

A framework was laid out in President Joe Biden's executive order on artificial intelligence last year, which requires technology companies to participate “Safety test results and other important information” With the Ministry of Commerce, once the model development reaches a certain extent.

No commercially available AI models — including OpenAI's GPT-4, Google Deepmind's Gemini, or Anthropic's Claude — have reached this threshold yet, research institute EpochAI told Reuters. Google Deepmind Gemini Ultra is “He is seen as close” The institute added.

The United States already imposes restrictions on the sale of some advanced computer technologies to China. In 2020, former US President Donald Trump banned the export of equipment used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China's largest chipmaker. Biden expanded the ban in 2022 to include all state-owned chip factories in China, barring Chinese companies from obtaining certain chips that are manufactured anywhere in the world using American tools.

At the time, the Ministry of Commerce claimed so “These items and abilities are being used before [China] To produce advanced military systems, including weapons of mass destruction… and commit human rights violations.”

United States currently In conversations With Japan, South Korea and Taiwan to formalize the so-called “fourth tranche alliance” created by Beijing be seen As an attempt by Washington “Control of semiconductor production and the global supply chain.”

Despite the crackdown, SMIC He succeeded in the production of semiconductors for Bitcoin mining using 7nm (nm) technology in 2021, a feat that only Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung were able to match at the time. According to AI experts who spoke to Reuters, AI export controls may be similarly ineffective, with China believed to be only two years behind the United States in developing its own AI software.