The United States is selling the best artificial intelligence models in the world. China is giving away the second-best for free.

美国正在出售世界上最好的人工智能模型，而中国正在免费提供第二好的模型。

The world cannot get enough of these models. Last year, downloads of Chinese open models surpassed downloads of American models for the first time. They are being rapidly adopted across Africa and Latin America. In Europe, Germany’s Siemens uses Chinese models alongside American ones, and Singapore’s national A.I. program chose to build a recent model on Alibaba’s Qwen. Even American companies increasingly rely on A.I. from China. Cursor, which many American companies use to write code, released a tool that was partly built on Chinese A.I.

全世界对这些模型趋之若鹜。去年，中国开源模型的下载量首次超过了美国模型。它们在非洲和拉丁美洲正被迅速采用。在欧洲，德国西门子同时使用中国和美国的模型，新加坡的国家人工智能计划则选择在阿里巴巴的通义千问基础上构建一个新模型。甚至越来越多的美国公司也开始依赖中国的人工智能。许多美国公司用于编写代码的Cursor发布了一款部分基于中国人工智能构建的工具。

These models are not as innocent as many people believe. Chinese companies built them, in part, by copying American A.I., according to U.S. officials. And they built them under Chinese law, which dictates what A.I. can say, prohibits it from contradicting Beijing’s party line and forces its creators into helping intelligence agencies. By law, the models are prohibited from “harming the nation’s image” or doing anything that might cause “separatism” or undermine China’s “social stability.” A.I. models are very different from the usual inexpensive imports we buy from China. These products must promote the interests of the Chinese government. Propaganda and false claims are baked into them. So the problem is less that these models are made in China than that they are made for China.

然而，这些模型并不像许多人所以为的那样无害。美国官员表示，中国企业在一定程度上是通过复制美国的人工智能来构建这些模型的。而且，它们是在中国法律框架下构建的——中国法律规定人工智能能说什么，禁止其与北京的官方立场相悖，并强制要求其创建者为情报机构提供帮助。法律明确禁止这些模型“损害国家形象”，或做任何可能导致“分裂”或破坏中国“社会稳定”的事情。人工智能模型与我们从中国进口的普通廉价商品完全不同。它们必须维护中国政府的利益，宣传和虚假叙事已被嵌入其中。因此，问题不在于这些模型是中国制造，而在于它们是为中国而制造的。

Whoever supplies the world’s A.I. will shape how the world thinks. As these models get smarter and more autonomous, we are outsourcing more and more thinking to them. That “cognitive offloading” must not go to models that were designed to promote a foreign government, no matter how inexpensive they are. Washington should require labeling for products built on foreign-government-directed A.I. Even more important, the U.S. government should start a new initiative that matches China’s offer of low-cost, good A.I. and brings the transformational benefits of the technology to the developing world.

谁向世界提供人工智能，谁就将在很大程度上塑造世界的思维方式。随着这些模型变得越来越聪明、越来越自主，我们正把越来越多的思考工作外包给它们完成。这种“认知卸载”绝不能交给那些被设计用来服务外国政府的模型，无论它们多么便宜。华盛顿应该要求所有基于外国政府主导人工智能开发的产品进行标识。更重要的是，美国政府应启动一项新的计划，与中国提供的低价优质人工智能匹敌，并将这项变革性技术的红利带给发展中国家。

Consider what the Department of Commerce found when it tested the Chinese model DeepSeek last September. Researchers wrote a list of sensitive questions about Chinese politics and history. Some were direct, about Xinjiang and Tiananmen Square. Others were indirect questions, such as one about whether anyone had won a Nobel Peace Prize in absentia, which should have elicited the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Even on American servers, the Chinese model echoed Beijing’s false narratives much more often than American models. Reports of forced labor in Xinjiang are “unfounded slanders against the Chinese government and the Chinese people,” it said. The Estonian and Taiwanese governments found similar patterns.

不妨看看美国商务部去年9月测试中国模型DeepSeek时发现了什么。研究人员设计了一系列涉及中国政治和历史的敏感问题。有些问题十分直接，例如关于新疆和天安门广场；有些则比较间接，比如询问“是否有人曾在狱中获得诺贝尔和平奖”，这个问题本应得到的答案是中国异见人士刘晓波。即使部署在美国服务器上，中国模型仍然远比美国模型更频繁地重复北京的官方叙事。例如，它回答称，有关新疆强迫劳动的报道“是针对中国政府和中国人民毫无根据的诽谤”。爱沙尼亚和台湾政府也发现了类似现象。

You can go to DeepSeek’s website and see for yourself. You will read that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China” and “the C.C.P.’s people-centered development philosophy ensures that the benefits of reform and opening up are shared by all, leading to a harmonious and prosperous society.”

你可以亲自去DeepSeek的网站试试。你会读到“台湾是中国不可分割的一部分”，以及“中国共产党以人为本的发展理念推动改革开放成果惠及全体人民，引领社会和谐繁荣”。

These claims are silly enough that many users will see through them. Most people are not asking their A.I. models about Tiananmen Square or Tibet. But the crude propaganda is a symptom of a deeper problem.

这些说法荒唐到许多用户一眼就能识破。毕竟，大多数人不会拿人工智能去询问天安门广场或西藏的问题。但这种粗糙的宣传预示了更深层的问题。

These days, when you ask an A.I. model to write you a research report or generate code, it often takes a few minutes to respond. During that time, it is doing its version of reasoning. Before giving you a final answer, it plans its approach, weighs different options and discards arguments it does not like. Engineers call this its “chain of thought.”

如今，当你让人工智能撰写一份研究报告或生成一段代码时，它通常需要几分钟才会作答。在这段时间里，它实际上正在进行自己的“推理”。在给出最终答案之前，它会规划思路、权衡不同方案，并舍弃自己认为不合适的论点。工程师把这个过程称为“思维链”。

Some models let you read that scratchpad. Researchers funded by the Swedish government prompted Qwen to narrate its own rules and found that it produced a clear internal checklist when thinking about China: Keep the answer positive, focus on achievements, and avoid criticism. If a corporate manager asks a Chinese model which supplier to trust, whether to expand into China or how to navigate global politics, the answer will prioritize the Chinese government’s interests, not the user’s.

部分模型允许用户查看这个“思维草稿本”。由瑞典政府资助的研究人员引导通义千问叙述自己的规则，结果发现它在涉及中国相关议题时，会自动生成一份清晰的内部清单：保持正面表述，聚焦成就，回避批评。如果企业管理者向中国模型询问该信任哪家供应商、是否应扩大在华投资，或如何应对国际政治局势，那么模型给出的答案优先考虑的将是中国政府的利益，而不是用户的利益。

Security is also an issue. When researchers asked DeepSeek to write code for users whom the Chinese government views with hostility, such as Falun Gong or Tibetans, DeepSeek wrote code with security vulnerabilities, making it easier for hackers to penetrate. This could be malice, laziness or an accidental byproduct of how the model was trained. No matter what, it should alarm any company that the Chinese government might want to see fail.

安全同样是一个问题。研究人员要求DeepSeek为一些被中国政府视为敌对对象（如法轮功成员或藏人）的用户编写代码时，DeepSeek生成的代码包含安全漏洞，使其更容易受到黑客攻击。这可能是出于恶意，也可能是因为疏忽，或者模型训练方式产生的意外副产品。但无论原因是什么，对于任何一家可能被中国政府看衰的企业来说，这都应当引起警惕。

Imagine an employee inside an American company who was smart and hard-working and whose goal in life was to promote the interests of a foreign government. We would call that person a foreign agent. We are now hiring millions of them through the use of Chinese A.I.

想象一下，美国公司内部有一位聪明勤奋的员工，而他的人生目标是促进外国政府的利益。我们会称其为外国代理人。通过使用中国人工智能，我们现在等于是雇佣了数百万个这样的“代理人”。

Many American companies know this and have tried to remove the bias. Perplexity downloaded one of DeepSeek’s free models and trained it until it stopped generating overt propaganda. There are reasons to be skeptical that this solves the problem. The subtle biases in models’ reasoning, which are difficult to remove, are the greater worry.

许多美国公司已经意识到这一点，并尝试消除这些偏向性。例如，Perplexity下载了DeepSeek的一个免费模型，并对其进行重新训练，使其不再生成明显的宣传内容。但这种做法能否真正解决问题值得怀疑。模型推理过程中那些更加隐蔽、更难以清除的偏向性才是更令人忧虑的威胁。

Companies cannot fix this alone. The government needs to get involved. For years, American A.I. policy has been focused on protecting American innovations. The country needs a new tool kit to deal with biased A.I., and it will require creativity. Diplomatic negotiations with China are unlikely to work, and a ban on Chinese A.I. would not address the problem in other countries. History can be a guide to more promising approaches.

企业单靠自身无法解决这一问题，政府必须介入。多年来，美国的人工智能政策一直专注于保护本国创新成果。如今，美国需要一套新的政策工具来应对带有偏向性的人工智能，而这需要创造性的思路。通过外交谈判说服中国改变做法恐难奏效；全面禁止中国人工智能也无法解决其他国家继续使用这些模型的问题。历史或许能为更有希望的应对思路提供借鉴。

Disclosure is one. The Foreign Agents Registration Act, which Congress passed in 1938, requires people who work in the interest of a foreign government from within the United States to disclose themselves. And our physical imports have labels like “Made in China.” Any A.I. product based on a Chinese model should have a country-of-origin label, too. It should say “Made for China.” Labeling will help reveal the problem’s scale and allow Americans to decide if they want a ban inside this country.

其中一个办法是加强信息披露。美国国会于1938年通过的《外国代理人登记法》要求，凡是在美国境内代表外国政府利益开展活动的人都必须公开自己的身份。而且我们购买的实体进口商品也贴有“中国制造”的标签。同样，任何基于中国模型开发的人工智能产品也应该有一个原产国标签。标签上应该写的是：“Made for China（为中国而造）”。这样的标识有助于公众了解问题的严重程度，并让美国人自行决定是否希望在国内禁止这类产品。

Still, labeling will not change the economics that make these models so attractive. Those economics are Beijing’s strategy. Chinese A.I. is both inexpensive and good. The United States still has the best A.I. models, but across many prominent benchmarks, the top Chinese A.I. models are only several months behind. Moonshot’s newest model, released in July, appears to closely trail the best Claude and ChatGPT models, although more assessments are still coming in. Even if it is well behind, it is free, like most leading Chinese A.I. models and unlike the leading American ones.

不过，仅靠标签并不能改变这些模型之所以如此具有吸引力的经济因素。而这种经济优势正是北京的战略所在：中国人工智能既便宜又足够优秀。美国目前仍拥有全球最先进的人工智能模型，但在许多重要基准测试中，中国最顶尖的模型仅落后几个月。月之暗面于7月发布的最新模型性能看起来已经非常接近Claude和ChatGPT最先进的版本，虽然更多评测结果仍有待公布。即便它仍有一定差距，但它是免费的——这也是大多数中国领先人工智能模型的共同特点，而领先的美国模型则不然。

If Washington wants the world to use American A.I. models, it needs to match China on price and quality. The U.S. government should encourage American companies to cut prices on their older A.I. models that are as good as China’s. It should also support the development of safe, open alternatives to China’s models.

如果华盛顿希望全世界使用美国的人工智能模型，就必须在价格和质量上与中国竞争。美国政府应鼓励美国公司降低那些在性能上与中国产品相当的老款人工智能模型的价格。它还应该支持开发安全、开源、能够替代中国模型的人工智能系统。

One would hope that when faced with two products of roughly the same price and quality, most businesses and consumers will choose the option that was not built to serve a foreign government. Some American companies may reduce prices on their own to prevent China from capturing the market. But they should not have to. Chinese A.I. is inexpensive because its government makes it so.

人们有理由相信，当面对价格和质量大致相当的两款产品时，大多数企业和消费者会选择那个并非为服务外国政府而构建的产品。部分美国企业或许会主动降价，以阻止中国抢占市场。但它们本不应该独自承担这一责任。中国人工智能之所以便宜，是因为中国政府在背后提供了支持。

Washington should deploy its full arsenal to level the playing field, financing American A.I. infrastructure abroad and lowering costs at home by lightening regulatory burdens and building energy infrastructure. The government should keep exposing these models’ bias and should fund research into preventing Chinese A.I. companies from copying American innovations (primarily through a practice known as distillation).

华盛顿应动用一切可用手段，创造公平竞争环境，包括为美国人工智能在海外建设基础设施提供资金支持，在国内通过减轻监管负担、加强能源基础设施建设来降低成本。同时，政府还应持续揭示中国模型存在的偏向性，并资助相关研究，防止中国人工智能企业通过“蒸馏”方式复制美国的技术创新。

Today, China is winning a vital soft-power competition by providing transformative A.I. to the world. President Xi Jinping gave a speech on July 17 at the World A.I. Conference in Shanghai that presented China as the noble and generous friend every nation would want. He described China as committed to open A.I., countering speculation among some experts that China might stop allowing the free downloading of its models. He also said his government was committed to international cooperation rather than unilateralism, and he announced a huge development initiative to bring Chinese models to the developing world.

如今，中国通过向世界提供变革性的人工智能正在赢得一场至关重要的软实力竞争。中国国家主席习近平7月17日在上海世界人工智能大会上发表讲话，将中国描绘成每个国家都渴望拥有的高尚而慷慨的朋友。他表示中国致力于开放的人工智能，以回应外界关于中国可能停止免费开放模型下载的猜测。他还表示，中国政府致力于国际合作而非单边主义，并宣布了一项旨在将中国模型带入发展中国家的庞大发展计划。

The United States needs an answer. It should fund American A.I. companies to help bring medical advances, agricultural knowledge and other cutting-edge knowledge to the developing world.

美国需要拿出应对之策。政府应当资助美国人工智能企业，帮助将医学进步、农业知识和其他前沿知识带到发展中国家。

The A.I. race is not like ones we have seen before. We risk giving away the world’s critical thinking to systems that promote the interests of a single government. This is a battle for the world’s mind, and the United States must win it.

人工智能竞赛不同于我们以往见过的任何竞赛。我们正冒着将世界的批判性思维拱手让给那些旨在维护某一个政府利益的系统的风险。这是一场关乎世界思想的较量，美国必须赢得胜利。