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Washington and Beijing Agree AI Competition Needs a Phone Line
· New York time
The United States and China agreed to launch an artificial intelligence dialogue with a communications channel intended to help defuse serious incidents. The agreement was reached during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's September visit, according to CNBC. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the countries should harbor no illusions as they both cooperate and compete on AI. That formulation captures the tension in the arrangement: two major powers can pursue their own technological interests while also wanting a way to communicate if a serious problem arises. A dialogue does not erase competition or promise agreement on every policy. Its purpose is more modest and potentially useful: creating a channel through which the two sides can discuss serious incidents. The practical achievement is not that rivals have stopped being rivals. It is that they have acknowledged a reason to keep talking. The arrangement matters to US policymakers and businesses because AI development and its consequences extend across borders. Decisions made by the world's two largest economies can shape a technology that is being developed and used internationally. Diplomacy has assigned itself a job that is less dramatic than declaring a winner. It wants a working line of communication when the stakes are high. The competitors can continue arguing about the future, preferably without having to search for each other's number in the middle of a crisis.
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