Article by Tal Feldman: “Foreign governments have tried to influence the United States since its founding. President George Washington warned in his Farewell Address that “foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” The old methods have certainly not gone out of vogue; just this week Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admitted to having a romantic relationship with a businesswoman who U.S. officials believe was working for Chinese intelligence. But today, a new type of foreign agent has arrived: Chinese artificial intelligence companies.
Like the foreign agents of old, the models these companies sell may seem harmless—just a cheap tool for American businesses to use. But their makers train them to promote the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). American businesses are outsourcing more and more critical decisions to AI. If Washington does nothing, those businesses will hand over control to models whose objective is to promote a foreign government.
Although U.S. policymakers now debate banning Chinese AI, the tried-and-true American solution is not censorship but disclosure. In 1938, Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Rather than outlaw propaganda, FARA allowed foreign agents to continue spreading it—as long as they registered with the government and disclosed whom they really worked for. Their communications also had to carry a conspicuous label naming their foreign sponsor.
FARA’s wisdom has aged well over the decades. In recent years, the Justice Department has ordered the Russian state television network RT and the Chinese state media organizations Xinhua and CGTNto register as foreign agents and to label their content as such. Those who failed to register as foreign agents, such as Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, and former U.S. Representative David Rivera of Florida, were sentenced to prison. (Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020.)
Today, rather than banning AI companies controlled by foreign governments, the United States should treat them as foreign agents under FARA. No new statute is needed. Washington should simply enforce the one on the books. Of course, FARA is no silver bullet against all foreign influence, but it fits the shape of this problem. A handful of known Chinese companies, such as DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI, build the models that American businesses increasingly let think and act for them. The Justice Department can reach every one of them.
Democracy is strong enough to survive foreign influence but not invisible foreign influence. And to make sure the world does not subordinate its decision-making to Beijing, Washington and its allies must create an allied AI compact and then spread their own models far and wide…(More)”.
