Washington — U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna is pressing major Chinese artificial intelligence companies and the U.S. intelligence community for information on safeguards against potentially catastrophic risks from increasingly advanced AI systems.
Khanna, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, sent letters to DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu and Moonshot AI CEO Yang Zhilin seeking details on their plans for artificial general intelligence and superintelligence.
“Neither the US nor China wins if humans lose control of this technology or misaligned AI triggers a global economic, biological, or nuclear crisis,” Khanna wrote.
He also sent a separate letter to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton requesting formal intelligence assessments on the potential threats posed by increasingly powerful AI.
The requests follow a Sept. 23 congressional hearing that examined the possibility of a binding and verifiable U.S.-China agreement aimed at reducing catastrophic AI risks.
Khanna asked the Chinese companies for information in several areas, including recursive self-improvement, artificial general intelligence, superintelligence, emergency shutdown mechanisms, model testing and international verification.
He asked whether the companies are developing, or plan to develop, AI systems capable of improving themselves recursively and what safeguards would be used to prevent humans from losing control of such systems.
Khanna also requested information on their timelines for developing AGI or superintelligence and whether they are working on mechanisms that could disable highly advanced systems during an emergency.
The lawmaker sought details about pre-release testing, including whether models are evaluated in isolated environments and screened for capabilities that could contribute to biological, chemical, nuclear or other large-scale threats.
Khanna also asked whether Chinese AI laboratories would participate in U.S.-China technical working groups aimed at developing methods to verify compliance with a future international agreement and whether they would allow independent inspections.
“Simply put, it is clear we cannot gamble the future of humanity on whether AI companies – including Chinese companies like yours – will responsibly self-regulate,” Khanna wrote.
He had previously urged DeepSeek, Alibaba and Moonshot AI to join U.S. AI companies in slowing development of increasingly advanced systems until stronger safeguards could be established. According to Khanna, the companies did not respond by a Sept. 22 deadline.
In his latest letters, Khanna also cited allegations involving censorship, support for Chinese military and intelligence activities, human rights abuses and the unauthorized use of U.S. AI models.
“With every refusal by your companies to participate in this effort to seek a verifiable global slowdown of AI development to benefit all of humanity, you only strengthen the case for a binding and enforceable AI treaty between our governments,” he wrote.
Khanna is separately asking U.S. intelligence agencies to assess how prepared the country would be if control of an advanced AI system were lost.
He also requested an assessment of how Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party view catastrophic AI risks, including the possibility that advanced systems could facilitate biological, chemical or nuclear threats.
Khanna has called for stronger U.S. monitoring of Chinese frontier AI laboratories and proposed joint U.S.-China technical working groups involving scientists from both countries to develop verification tools for a potential international agreement.
“History will look back at this moment, the choices made by humanity as we potentially approach the Rubicon of superintelligence or AGI, and either celebrate our foresight or condemn our inaction,” Khanna wrote.
The debate comes as artificial intelligence has become an increasingly important part of the broader U.S.-China technology rivalry, alongside restrictions on advanced semiconductors and scrutiny of Chinese access to American computing technology. (Source: IANS)
