Visitors pass a stand equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) surveillance cameras using facial recognition technology during the 14th China International Public Security Expo held at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing in 2018.
Nicholas Asfouri | AFP | Getty Images
Any measure would complement a series of measures taken over the past two years to block the export of advanced AI chips to China, aimed at slowing the Chinese government's development of cutting-edge technology for military purposes. Still, it will be difficult for regulators to keep up with the industry's rapid development.
The Commerce Department declined to comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Currently, major U.S. AI companies such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which has developed the most powerful closed-source AI models, Alphabet's Google DeepMind, and rival Anthropic, are making their models available to nearly everyone in the world without government oversight. There's nothing stopping you from selling.
Government and private sector researchers believe that U.S. adversaries can use this model, which mines vast amounts of text and images to summarize information and generate content, to launch offensive cyberattacks and create powerful There are concerns that it could be used to create biological weapons.
To develop export controls for AI models, the U.S. could use thresholds included in an AI executive order issued last October based on the amount of computing power needed to train the models, officials said. said. Once that level is reached, the developer must report his AI model development plan and submit test results to the Department of Commerce.
That computational power threshold could be the basis for determining which AI models are subject to export controls, according to two U.S. officials and another person briefed on the discussions. They declined to give their names because details have not been made public.
According to EpochAI, a research organization that tracks AI trends, Google's Gemini Ultra is seen as meeting that standard, but is still considered below the mark, so even if it is used. , it is likely to only restrict the export of models that have not yet been released. .
Officials emphasized that the agency is far from finalizing the proposed rule. But the fact that such a move is being considered highlights gaps in the U.S. government's efforts to thwart Beijing's AI ambitions, despite the significant challenge of imposing a robust regulatory regime on rapidly evolving technology. It shows that you are trying to fill in the
As the Biden administration considers competition with China and the dangers of advanced AI, AI models are “obviously one of the tools and one of the potential challenges that needs to be considered here.” '' said Peter Harrell, former National Security Council member. Formal. He added: “In fact, in practical terms, it remains to be seen whether exports can be turned into a controllable choke point.”
U.S. intelligence agencies, think tanks, and academics are increasingly concerned about the risks posed by foreign bad actors gaining access to advanced AI capabilities. Researchers from Gryphon Scientific and Rand Corporation pointed out that advanced AI models can provide useful information for creating biological weapons.
In its 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment, the Department of Homeland Security states that cyber attackers will use AI to “develop new tools that will enable them to conduct larger, faster, more efficient, and more evasive cyber attacks.” ” is likely to be carried out.
The new export restrictions could also apply to other countries, one of the people said.
“Possibility of explosion [AI’s] “The use and exploitation is extreme, and we have a really hard time complying with it,” Brian Holmes, an official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said at an export control meeting in March, calling China's progress a special issue. warned as. concern.
To address these concerns, the United States has taken steps to prevent American AI chips and the tools to manufacture them from leaving China.
It also proposed rules that would require U.S. cloud companies to notify the government if foreign customers use their services to train powerful AI models that could be used in cyber attacks. .
However, so far there has been no mention of the AI model itself. Alan Estevez, who oversees U.S. export policy at the Commerce Department, said in December that the department is considering options to regulate exports of open source large-scale language models (LLMs) before seeking industry feedback. said.
Tim Fist, an AI policy expert at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank CNAS, said the threshold is “a good temporary measure until we develop better ways to measure the capabilities and risks of new models.” says.
The threshold is not fixed. One of the people said a combination of other factors, such as the type of data and the potential uses of the AI model (such as the ability to design proteins that could be used to make biological weapons), ultimately led Commerce to reach a lower bound. There is a possibility that it will fall below.
Regardless of the threshold, it is difficult to control the export of AI models. Many models are open source, meaning they remain outside the scope of export controls under consideration.
Even imposing regulations on more advanced proprietary models will prove difficult, as regulators will likely struggle to define appropriate criteria for deciding which models to regulate, Fist said. pointed out that China is likely to be only about two years behind the United States. Developed original AI software.
