SACRAMENTO, the United States, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Biden administration's new export controls on artificial intelligence (AI) models and advanced chips faced mounting criticism from industry experts, who worry such controls will impede global AI development.
After the administration unveiled the framework on Monday, the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security published updated export controls on advanced computing items on Wednesday, including the first-ever export controls on AI models and worldwide license requirements for advanced chips.
These changes are effective as of Monday, but the compliance date for the new license requirements is not until May 13, which is also the deadline for the public comments period.
While aimed at addressing so-called national security concerns, the rule restricts the export of advanced AI chips and technologies to strategic competitors. It has raised pressing concerns about its implications for U.S. competitiveness and the global AI ecosystem.
"The U.S. government spent a lot of time talking about the need to be open and bottom-up, decentralized in many areas of the Internet and tech system, but in AI, they seem to be kind of going the opposite," said Daniel Castro, vice president of Washington D.C.-based think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
He told a virtual panel discussion hosted by ITIF on Thursday that he had talked to "some folks in different countries" about the proposed rule. "They're shocked about this policy and what this means for how the U.S. sees them as one of these tier-two countries," he said.
The framework creates a complex new system where only 18 "trusted" economies, including close U.S. allies like Britain, Japan and Germany, would be exempt from strict export caps, which is called the "tier-one" group.
The "tier-two" group covers most of the world, including Israel, Singapore, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They would face significant restrictions with tight country-specific limits on chip imports.
Officials in Poland and Israel have protested against the new framework. Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digitalization Krzysztof Gawkowski called the policy "incomprehensible and not based on any substantive reasons."
An Israeli parliamentary subcommittee on Wednesday called for an urgent meeting to discuss how the new limits could set back its AI development and "how these controls on both the (AI) models and the chips are setting a new precedent, particularly in the tech space," said Castro. But he added that this approach "seems familiar," with the crypto wars in the 1990s as an example.
The U.S. export controls on encryption technologies caused economic pressure on U.S. tech companies, which have argued that the restrictions hurt their competitiveness in global markets. In 1999, the White House announced a major policy shift that effectively ended the most contentious phase of the crypto wars.
"I think it's not unprecedented. Unfortunately, what might be unprecedented is we've forgotten that it didn't work in previous efforts, the crypto wars being one of them," said James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
He alluded to another example of U.S. export controls on satellite technology, particularly remote sensing satellites.
To prevent this technology from spreading, the United States imposed strict export controls on remote sensing satellites and related technologies. These restrictions had a negative impact on U.S. companies in the satellite industry, limiting their ability to compete globally. As a result of these restrictions, other countries developed their own satellite industries to fill the gap.
"So, I see this more as incentivizing foreign competition to create substitutes, unnaturally damaging America's technological leadership," said Lewis. "We always say that we're all for peace and harmony and sharing global technology, but when it actually comes to implementing it, we're much more risk-averse." ■