China Says AI Should Be for Everyone, Not Just Powerful Nations

China's most important government newspaper said on Wednesday that artificial intelligence, or AI, should not be controlled by only the strongest countries. The People's Daily, which speaks for China's ruling Communist Party, published a commentary saying the United States and China need to work together to keep AI safe and fair. The article argued that AI should be open to everyone, not just a few powerful nations.

The United States and China are the two biggest players in AI development. Both countries have been arguing about how AI should be built, shared, and controlled. These disagreements were expected to come up in important talks between the two countries the following week.

Earlier this year, the White House accused China of stealing ideas and technology from American AI companies on a very large scale. China pushed back against those claims in the People's Daily commentary, saying it supports open-source AI — a system where anyone can see and use the computer code behind AI tools. The commentary said this includes companies from the United States.

One of the biggest arguments in the article was about a process called 'distillation.' Distillation means training a smaller AI model by using the results from a bigger, more powerful one. This helps make powerful AI cheaper and easier to build. The People's Daily said that U.S. companies use distillation all the time, but when Chinese companies do the same thing, American leaders call it an attack or a security threat.

Despite the strong words, the People's Daily said China is still willing to have 'constructive and professional' talks with the United States. The goal, the article said, is to make AI open, fair, and useful for people around the world. Both countries agreeing on AI rules could have a huge effect on how the technology grows in the future.