Matt Sheehan is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on China’s artificial intelligence ecosystem. He is the author of a recently published paper, China’s AI Regulations and How They Get Made, the first report in a three-part series that explores how the Chinese government is formulating rules to rein in the country’s burgeoning AI sector. He spoke to The Wire a few weeks after Chinese regulators published their interim regulations in July on generative AI, the kind of algorithms like ChatGPT that can be used to generate content. In this lightly edited Q&A, we discuss Matt’s research process, how China’s AI regulations compare with those in the West, and what those new rules for generative AI mean for China’s competitiveness in the global AI race.
Matt Sheehan.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: In tracing the evolution of China’s AI regulations in your report, you’ve also told a story of how events and ideas become
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