China says no to AI-powered nukes

In what was likely his final meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping before leaving office, US President Joe Biden walked away with a big victory. The two nuclear powers agreed for the first time that any decisions to deploy nuclear weapons would be made by humans, not artificial intelligence.

In a 90-minute meeting on the sidelines of the APEC conference in Lima, Peru, on Saturday, the two world leaders hashed out the agreement after months of reported resistance from China to engage at all in nuclear arms talks.

In a national security memo last month, the Biden administration explicitly prohibited the use of AI to skirt existing protocols around launching nuclear weapons. But China had resisted making a public declaration until now.

The two countries are locked in a race to build up their respective AI capabilities — and that’s deeply intertwined with their military ambitions. The US, which has a technological edge due to having the largest global chip designers and AI software companies, has enacted strict export controls to keep this technology out of China’s hands. With the Trump administration coming to power in January, it’s unclear how Washington’s China policy will change, though it is expected to be similarly aggressive.