Here in the United States over the past week, there's been a lot of panic about how quickly AI is advancing
and whether it could bring about the end of humanity.
But in China, there doesn't seem to be the same level of concern.
They've actually responded with umbrage, but not for the reason you would think.
Our colleague Stu Wu covers business and tech in Asia.
And he says that in China, worrying about the AI apocalypse is sort of like a problem of privilege.
The way China sees it, this is a problem for tomorrow or years away.
When you talk to researchers inside the labs,
they think they're behind the great American models like Adanthropic and OpenAI.
And they're thinking, well, this is not a big deal for us yet.
We don't think our models are going to end the world anytime soon.
What we got to do right now is make sure that our products
are competitive with the American products because we're not there yet.
And if Beijing isn't willing to get on board with an AI slowdown, it's unlikely Washington, D.C. Will either.
Stu says this standoff reminds a lot of people of one of the defining moments of the last century.
Think about the original nuclear arms race.
They think the U.S.
Has invented the first atomic weapon, and then the U.S.
Said, whoa, whoa, whoa, this thing we invented is actually super dangerous,
and everybody should slow down research on their own nukes.