AI cooperation: On Artificial Intelligence at a crossroads

Artificial Intelligence is at a strange crossroads, with the United States government disregarding frontier AI developers’ own call for a global development slowdown of models due to hacking risks and misalignment and the BRICS Summit offering an alternative view of how geopolitics should respond to this rapidly evolving situation. The AI firms and the U.S. government have long framed the astronomical sums being funnelled into data centres and other associated investments as key to holding their ground in a U.S.-China competition. During the Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned against the “weaponisation” of technology and minerals , while Chinese President Xi Jinping touted the potential of a “BRICS AI open source community” that would challenge any one country’s dominance in the sector. India has taken the middle path, not joining any protest against U.S.-led models, while underscoring the need to keep AI development insulated from national rivalries.