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Microsoft’s chief executive is pushing for China to have a seat at the table of leaders deciding global rules for artificial intelligence, as business titans and government bosses jockey to shape the technology’s development.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s plea for China’s inclusion in AI governance echoes a similar call from billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk this summer. The tech titans’ efforts run against the grain of Western governments, whose intelligence chiefs united last week for an unprecedented warning about the threat of Chinese tech thievery.
Mr. Nadella told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner that “we have to” bring China to the decision-makers’ table amid concerns about the “existential risk of a runaway AI.”
“What we’ve done in the atomic sphere might be the moral equivalent in AI where China also needs to be at the table,” Mr. Nadella said in the interview published Sunday by Insider.
Preventing China from having a major role in AI development would not benefit Microsoft’s business interests. China is home to Microsoft’s largest research and development center outside the U.S., according to Microsoft’s website. Mr. Nadella told Axel Springer that AI is the biggest opportunity for his Big Tech company’s future.
“Even if it thinks about the first real-world issues in a different way, because of their political system, it should care about the runaway AI problem, too,” Mr. Nadella said of communist China. “So, I think figuring out at least some common ground on governance is going to be helpful.”
Mr. Nadella’s advocacy for the West partnering with China follows Mr. Musk’s similar pitch in July. The owner of X told U.S. lawmakers in a Twitter Spaces conversation that he is “kind of pro-China” and knows the communists want a say in making global AI rules.
“My understanding from the conversations that I had in China was that China is definitely interested in working in a cooperative international framework regarding AI regulation,” Mr. Musk said.
Countervailing headwinds facing the tech titans’ public advocacy are coming from skeptical Western governments who do not trust the Chinese government.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray assembled intelligence directors from Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand in California last week to sound an alarm about the threat of Chinese theft of businesses’ tech.
The gathering represented the intelligence chiefs’ first-ever public event together, culminating in a joint appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to warn that the Chinese government represents the “defining threat” of this generation.
“The Chinese government, if they want to be a great nation, it’s time for them to start acting like one,” Mr. Wray said in the interview that aired Sunday. “And that includes abiding by its own commitments.”
Those commitments include not stealing innovation and exporting repression to other countries, according to Mr. Wray.
Big Tech, however, appears more worried about losing China’s business than the Chinese Communist Party frets about alienating Americans.
For example, the production of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” on the Apple TV reportedly came to a halt in recent days amid a dispute between the comedian and Apple executives over China.
Mr. Stewart told the defunct show’s staff that potential topics involving AI and China caused consternation for Apple executives, according to The New York Times.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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