Elon Musk Thinks China is Interested in an International AI Framework

Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
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Elon Musk Thinks China is Interested in an International AI Framework

Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo
Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo

Billionaire Elon Musk said on Wednesday he thinks China is interested in a cooperative international framework on artificial intelligence, from conversations he had when he visited a few weeks ago.
Musk made the remarks in a Twitter Space event with two US congressmen, Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Mike Gallagher, Reuters said.
"China is definitely interested in working in a cooperative international framework for AI regulation," Musk said. He added that he had advocated for artificial intelligence regulations and oversight, including in his meetings in China.
Musk's remarks came on the day he launched his long-teased artificial intelligence startup, xAI, after arguing for months about AI's potential for "civilization destruction."
Musk recently traveled to China and met the foreign, commerce and industry ministers as well as Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. His Tesla electric car company has a factory in Shanghai.
Musk later said the Chinese government would seek to initiate artificial intelligence regulations.
On Thursday, China issued a set of interim measures to manage the booming industry, paving the way for its tech companies to roll out AI services.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China attached great importance to the development and governance of AI and "advocates adhering to the principle of human-centered intelligence and creating artificial intelligence for good."
"China is willing to enhance communication and exchanges with the international community on AI security governance, promote the establishment of an international mechanism with universal participation, and form a governance framework and standards that share broad consensus," Wang told a regular briefing in response to a question about Musk's comments.
Several governments are considering how to mitigate the dangers of the emerging technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity in recent months after the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Regulators globally have been scrambling to draw up rules governing the use of generative AI, which can create text and images. Its impact has been compared to that of the internet.



China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
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China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)

China's Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek's model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's roll-out of AI models which it says is on par with, or even better than, industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, has roiled the industry and re-energized the global AI race.

"ERNIE X1 delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price," Baidu said of one of the new models.

The X1 has "stronger understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities," Baidu said, adding that it is the first deep thinking model that uses tools autonomously.

Baidu said its latest foundation model ERNIE 4.5 has "excellent multimodal understanding ability. It has more advanced language ability, and its understanding, generation, logic, and memory abilities are comprehensively improved."

It also has "high EQ", and it is easy to understand network memes and satirical cartoons, Baidu said.

One of China's earliest tech giants to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot, Baidu has struggled to gain widespread adoption for its Ernie large language model, despite claiming performance comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4, amid fierce competition.

Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data including text, video, images and audio, and can convert content across these formats.