US, China cooperate on global AI governance despite intensifying competition

The good news, if you squint, is that the United States and China are cooperating on global AI governance despite intensifying competition — which the article offers as a heartwarming paradox, like two flatmates who loathe each other but have agreed to share the Wi-Fi password. The agenda covers cooperation in tracking AI-powered cyberattacks, China's access to advanced American models, Washington's restrictions on open-source Chinese models, and keeping frontier models out of the hands of non-state actors. Two of those four items are, on inspection, the two countries arguing about who gets to hold the toys. The other two are joint bookkeeping on the fire.

Take the cyberattack item first. Washington and Beijing want to track AI-powered attacks together, which is genuinely useful and also hands both governments a standing reason to inspect the other's networks and call it governance. Then the model-access question: China would like access to advanced American models, Washington would like to restrict open-source Chinese ones, so the cooperation here has the texture of two people negotiating over a door they are both leaning on. The fourth item — preventing state-of-the-art frontier models from falling to non-state actors — is the most honest sentence in the piece. It is two states, quietly, saying the end of the world should remain a sovereign matter.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies reckons two distinct approaches to global AI governance are emerging from the US and China, with a third arriving from the UN — which is how you end up with three rulebooks, no referee, and everyone insisting theirs is the definitive edition. The article names no negotiator, no signing date, no enforcement mechanism, which is probably because there isn't one worth naming. What exists is a coordinating committee for the fog. Meanwhile the frontier models keep arriving on schedule, indifferent to whether the paperwork is filed in Washington, Beijing, or a UN subcommittee that meets quarterly. Nothing here will slow anything down, and every party at the table knows it.