How to Make the U.S.-China AI Race Less Dangerous

The Trump Administration should push for technical exchanges on how to actually test models for dangerous capabilities and behaviors that neither country wants to see released into the wild. These include AI systems capable of helping amateurs develop bioweapons, or evading human oversight and control. American AI companies have been studying these risks for years, and they have also begun to appear in Chinese technical standards related to safety testing. Exchanging best practices and new insights about how to test for and mitigate these risks could render the systems built in both countries meaningfully safer.

These proposed technical exchanges would not depend on “trust” or even strict “reciprocity” between the two superpowers, nor would they require identical conceptions of AI risk. They would be driven by self-interest. As the most advanced AI models grow even more powerful, both countries have an interest in ensuring that these systems remain controllable, regardless of where they are built or deployed. That will require both countries to improve their model testing, monitoring and safeguards, and share promising findings that could enhance safety without surrendering a competitive edge or undermining national security.