The US is seeking to establish a new “notification mechanism” with China that would allow mutual alerts in case an incident regarding artificial intelligence becomes potent enough to pose a threat to national security, even as President Donald Trump prepares to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington this week.
The proposal, discussed during talks between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday, would form part of a broader US-China dialogue on AI, with a focus on national security, transparency and “common goals and common threats”, reports Axios.
“We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important,” Bessent told reporters after the talks.
Trump’s science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios said the “key thing” Washington wanted to discuss was “avoiding shared risks”. Exactly what type of incident would trigger a notification has not been publicly defined.
The proposed channel has been compared with the US-Soviet “red phone” established during the Cold War to prevent dangerous misunderstandings from escalating into a wider confrontation.
AI crisis channel has been described as a method to deal with incidents involving autonomous systems, cyberattacks or other failures where it may be unclear whether a government, a non-state actor or an AI system itself was responsible.
