The Chinese government has raised alarms over what it sees as the “uncontrolled development” of artificial intelligence in the United States, warning that it could have serious global consequences and potentially disastrous outcomes.
Speaking on the issue, Chinese Ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhu, criticized U.S. tech companies for putting profits ahead of safety, pointing to troubling incidents where teenagers have tragically taken their own lives.
“There (in the United States), the development of artificial intelligence is largely determined by profit-driven interests,” Zhang stated in an interview with TASS News Agency.
He argued that in the pursuit of maintaining a dominant position on the global stage, American authorities have allowed AI technologies and companies to grow without adequate oversight, increasing the risk of “tragic consequences.”
Since early 2024, Zhang claimed, there has been a rise in “more cases of AI chatbots developed by US companies encouraging teenagers to commit suicide.”
He also brought up a major incident that occurred on 1 January 2025, involving a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
According to Ambassador Zhang, the event shocked the international community, labeling it as “the first-ever [attack] planned using ChatGPT.”
He warned that this incident underscored a bigger danger — “the uncontrolled development of technology can turn into a disaster for human civilisation.”
Turning to his own country’s actions, Zhang highlighted the Chinese government’s move in March 2024 to introduce regulations through a policy titled “Basic Safety Requirements for Generative Artificial Intelligence Services.”
In addition, China rolled out a multi-layered management approach to AI and followed it up in September 2024 with the release of the AI Safety Governance Framework document.