However whereas the nationwide safety issues require an answer, Curtis stated his precedence is sustaining “a extremely productive relationship with China.” He pushed Lutnick to deal with how he plans to carry DeepSeek—and the CCP usually—accountable for nationwide safety issues amid ongoing tensions with China.

Lutnick steered that if he’s confirmed (which seems probably), he’ll pursue a coverage of “reciprocity,” the place China can “anticipate to be handled by” the US precisely how China treats the US. At the moment, China is treating the US “horribly,” Lutnick stated, and his “first step” as Commerce Secretary can be to “repeat endlessly” that extra “reciprocity” is anticipated from China.

However whereas Lutnick answered Curtis’ questions on DeepSeek considerably head-on, he didn’t have time to answer Curtis’ inquiry about Lutnick’s intentions for the US AI Security Institute (AISI)—which Lutnick’s division would oversee and which might be important to the US staying forward of China in AI improvement.

Viewing AISI as key to US world management in AI, Curtis provided “instruments” to assist Lutnick give the AISI “new legs” or a “new life” to make sure that the US stays responsibly forward of China within the AI race. However Curtis ran out of time to press Lutnick for a response.

It stays unclear how AISI’s work would possibly change beneath Trump, who revoked Joe Biden’s AI safety rules establishing the AISI.

What is evident is that lawmakers are being pressed to protect and even evolve the AISI.

Yesterday, the chief economist for a nonprofit known as the Basis for the American Innovation, Samuel Hammond, offered written testimony to the US Home Science, Area, and Know-how Committee, recommending that AISI be “retooled to carry out voluntary audits of AI fashions—each open and closed—to certify their safety and reliability” and to maintain America on the forefront of AI improvement.

“With so little separating China and America’s frontier AI capabilities on a technical degree, America’s lead in AI is barely as sturdy as our lead in computing infrastructure,” Hammond stated. And “because the founding member of a consortium of 280 comparable AI institutes internationally, the AISI seal of approval would thus assist the export and diffusion of American AI fashions worldwide.”