Tag: Trump, Donald J

The U.S. and China Are Far Apart on A.I. Safety

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If there is one person who represents the frontier of Chinese artificial intelligence, it is Tang Jie. The soft-spoken data engineer is the co-founder, chief scientist and largest individual shareholder of China’s leading artificial intelligence lab, Z.ai, whose models have risen to the top tier of China’s performance tables and made Mr. Tang the flag-bearer for the Chinese A.I. ecosystem. In some ways, Mr. Tang’s messaging about A.I. seems to mirror that of Dario Amodei, the co-founder and chief executive of Anthropic — the American company behind Claude — and…

Vietnam’s leader is likely to warn of threats to middle powers.

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The podium of the United Nations was an unusual setting for the leader of a global superpower to threaten to “annihilate the Islamic republic” of Iran or to declare that, in another conflict, “to the victor belong the spoils.” Yet that was exactly what President Trump did on Tuesday, in threatening Iran if it failed to make a deal to end a war that had stretched far longer than Mr. Trump anticipated, and justifying his claims on Venezuelan oil reserves after American forces deposed its leader. Mr. Trump has long…

China’s Leader Xi Seeks to Extend Truce with Trump During U.S. Summit

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When China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Trump meet in Washington this week, the two men will be operating on vastly different clocks. The American president is constrained by the immediate demands of a midterm election in November and a grinding war. The Chinese leader is gearing up for a norm-shattering fourth term as head of the ruling Communist Party, that will keep him in power for another five years. For Mr. Xi, the disparity in political realities gives him an edge in maintaining the truce that the two…

South Korean President Calls for Easing Sanctions on the North

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Breaking with decades of policy on North Korea, the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, is now urging the United States to ease sanctions on Pyongyang in exchange for an agreement that it freeze its weapons programs. “I believe there is significant value in a trade-off between sanctions — which are not particularly effective anyway — and a stop to the development of additional nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile technology,” Mr. Lee said in an interview with The New York Times on Friday. However unpalatable such a bargain…

Trump Courts North Korea’s Leader, but Might Need China to Reignite the Flame

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The overtures from President Trump to one of his favorite dictators came hot and heavy over the summer. In June, Mr. Trump posted a photo of himself strolling through the tropical grounds of a luxury hotel with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, during their historic summit in Singapore eight years ago. Weeks later, he wrote online that the two had a “very good relationship.” In that post, Mr. Trump announced that the American military would dial back exercises with South Korea, shocking the close U.S. ally and handing…

Why Emerging Powers Keep Joining BRICS, Even When They Disagree

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At a gathering of nations that are challenging the dominance of the United States, Iran’s president took the main stage on Friday, flanked by the leaders of Russia and India, to condemn “military aggression” by the United States. Iran wants to show that Western sanctions have not left it isolated, even as it digs into a war with the United States that has severely restricted the crucial Strait of Hormuz route for oil and other commodities. President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran spoke at the BRICS Business Forum, ahead of the…

Chinese Threat Requires a Broader Spying Mission, C.I.A. Deputy Director Says

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The United States is engaging in a broader range of espionage against China, including Chinese companies, to address the country’s status as both a military and an economic threat, the deputy C.I.A. director, Michael Ellis, said on Tuesday. During a rare public speaking appearance, Mr. Ellis said the nature of intelligence collection by the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies had evolved considerably since they were created during the Cold War to spy on the Soviet Union. Unlike past geopolitical rivals, China “poses a fundamentally different kind of threat to us…

The Next China Shock Is Here

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This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts. The biggest economic story in the world right now is China’s growing dominance across advanced manufacturing sector after advanced manufacturing sector — from electric vehicles to batteries to solar panels to software like A.I. and open models, where they’ve become a world leader. What is happening here is very different than what we call the first China Shock, when China became a big exporter of things that were not…

Trump Gives Green Light to U.S. Companies to Aim Hacks at Cybercriminals

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The Trump administration is encouraging American companies to conduct their own cyberattacks against criminal hackers, a move that White House officials say will help address digital scourges like ransomware but that some former officials and security experts warn could lead to chaos. Under a national security memorandum that President Trump signed late Wednesday, select companies would work with the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to strike foreign cybercriminal groups with hacks under certain conditions. The attacks would allow both surveillance of the criminal networks and specific types of hacking operations…

Trump White House Readies AI Framework to Review Security Risks

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In a meeting on Tuesday with top artificial intelligence companies, White House officials said the federal government planned to review only certain types of artificial intelligence models for potential security risks and not others, according to four people familiar with the discussions. The A.I. models the government plans to review are known as “closed” models, which do not publish their underlying code and are made by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, according to three of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the meeting were…