CSET’s Lorand Laskai explains in Foreign Affairs how U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology, including the products of Huawei, could wind up spurring on China’s efforts at self-reliance in innovation.

CSET’s Helen Toner, Jeff Ding, and Elsa Kania testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on U.S.-China Competition in Artificial Intelligence: Policy, Industry, and Strategy.

“We should be clear-eyed about what is going on in China, especially with regard to human rights abuses, but we should not be hysterical about the level of security threat that China poses,” said Helen Toner, CSET's director of strategy. “If the U.S. can act wisely and place its values front and center, it’s likely we can reach a new equilibrium that serves our interests. Fear and hype tend to damage the U.S. rather than serve it.”

In 2018, the Commerce Department proposed categories of “emerging technology” for export controls. “The problem is that these categories are exceptionally broad, denoting large buckets of technologies that are often layered into a diverse set of applications, most with no relevance to national security,” says CSET’s Lorand Laskai.

In this article, CSET’s Helen Toner notes U.S. companies and labs attract top talent worldwide. “Supporting that will help the U.S. retain its advantage over the longer term.”

“AI and other emerging technologies will deliver profound benefits to society, but they will also introduce new risks,” said CSET’s founding director, Jason Matheny. “Technologists don’t always consider the details of policy, and policymakers don’t always consider the details of technology.”