Call for Trump-Xi AI safety talks comes as state media slams US AI governance

Dean Ball, a former White House adviser, says the window for cooperation will ‘widen’ in next few months but will not stay open forever

“I have always believed US/China AI safety collaboration would be desirable but thought it was unlikely to happen,” Dean Ball, OpenAI’s head of strategic futures, wrote on X on Tuesday. “In the past few months, though, the ground has shifted. There is a window of opportunity.”

Ball, a former adviser to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the window for cooperation would “widen over at least the next few months” because of escalating AI risks and the upcoming bilateral meeting, but warned it “will not remain open forever”.

Ahead of Xi’s planned state visit to the US on September 24, officials from both sides “will press forward with dialogues” on topics including AI guardrails, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters on Sunday.

However, Chinese state media delivered a harsh critique of US AI governance ahead of the talks.

In an article published on Sunday, Yuyuan Tantian, a social media account affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV, accused US AI firm Anthropic of trying to dictate industry rules through aggressive lobbying and CEO Dario Amodei’s calls to arm democracies with AI.