The tech diplomat who helped launch America's official talks with China on artificial intelligence has a message: Don't expect these safety summits to save the world. In a New York Times opinion piece, former State Department envoy Seth Center recounts how the first US-China AI dialogue, nominally about managing risks from powerful systems, veered as Chinese officials brushed off safety concerns, resisted describing their own rules, and instead pushed process-heavy subgroups and arguments that the US focus on risk is really a way to keep poorer countries down. "China will have little interest in anything beyond gaining a competitive advantage," Center writes.
He warns that as another round of talks approaches—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng this weekend, per Reuters—Beijing is likely to use the same strategy. That would include hinting at cooperation while seeking concessions on issues like chip controls and continuing China's efforts to gain an edge, including by exploiting US models and spreading propaganda abroad, Center says. Rather than pin hopes on a sweeping treaty that isn't coming, he argues, the real progress will have to start at home, with companies and governments in both countries tightening technical safeguards, raising transparency, and only then translating that into modest, nonbinding international commitments. Center's piece, including his proposal for an alternative path, can be found here.
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