The U.S. and China should "harbor no illusions" about their differences as they engage to contain the risks of artificial intelligence, while competing with each other at the same time, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
Bessent said in prepared remarks to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York Tuesday that the two governments had established a new dialogue mechanism on "super intelligence," or SI, aimed at guarding against "shared risks" and averting any "misunderstanding between our two systems."
The mechanism will see both sides exchanging "best practices" for testing advanced models before they are released, and "keeping human judgement firmly in command of the technology," Bessent said, expecting both sides to alert each other to serious incidents involving the SI models.
Bessent, however, stopped short of making any commitment to limit advancement of the technology, as Beijing and Washington remain locked in an intense race to achieve global dominance in AI.
The Trump administration has largely resisted broadening restrictions on AI development over concerns of ceding a competitive edge to China, though the president has more recently signaled some openness to putting in place regulatory safeguards.