US and China must join hands to measure rising AI tide

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Opinion

Before deciding how to respond to developments in artificial intelligence, Beijing and Washington need a better sense of just how quickly the tide is rising

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The next US-China talk on artificial intelligence should begin with a simple question: do the two governments actually understand how rapidly AI’s capabilities are improving? Before deciding what to do about the technology, Washington and Beijing need a common way to measure its progress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump are expected to meet in Shenzhen soon, and AI is set to remain high on their agenda. Their continued exchanges on this transformative technology are a positive sign, but AI is advancing so fast that governments may have less time to prepare for its consequences than they assume.

AI is fundamentally reshaping work across very different fields, including some once thought difficult to disrupt. In China, over 90 per cent of new microdramas in the first eight months of the year were AI-generated – without cameras or live actors. A production that once required as many as 100 people can now rely on just two to five to complete the work in one week. AI has wiped out much of what was once lucrative work for actors.

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