This month, the White House disclosed that China has rejected American proposals to limit the use of artificial intelligence for controlling the launch of nuclear weapons.

Beijing’s quick rejection, occurring in talks in Geneva in May between U.S. and Chinese officials, is a setback for Washington’s efforts to find areas of agreement with China. President Biden raised this issue with Xi Jinping in California last November and announced that AI was one of the areas where the two countries would hold further discussions.

Tarun Chhabra, director of technology at the National Security Council, revealed China’s rejection and said the White House will soon issue a memorandum on the use of AI by, among other federal agencies, the Department of Defense.

“Our position has been publicly clear for a very long time: We don’t think that autonomous systems should be getting near any decision to launch a nuclear weapon,” Chhabra declared. “That’s long-stated U.S. policy.”

“We think all countries around the world should sign up to that,” he added. “We think that makes a lot of sense to do.”

“Nobody wants to see AI-controlled nuclear weapons, right?” asked, Joe Wang, a National Security Council staffer at the Arlington-based Special Competitive Studies........

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