U.S. Senator Aims to Criminalize Chinese AI

On January 29, 2025, United States Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill into the United States Senate that would ban criminalize the import, export and re-export of Chinese developed AI.

From Senator Hawley's website:

• “Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States,” said Senator Hawley. “America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation.”

• Senator Hawley’s new legislation comes after China unveiled “DeepSeek,” a data-harvesting, low-cost AI model that sparked international concern and sent American technology stocks plummeting.

The bill outlines prohibition of importation of AI or intellectual property that with Chinese interest or ownership with a maximum fine of $1,000,000 and up to 20 years in prison.

This is spurred, no doubt, by the release of Deepseek R1 and the knee-jerk reaction of the U.S. based stock markets. There is controversy surrounding the training methodologies of Deepseek, as sources within OpenAI claim that there is suspicion that Deepseek used OpenAI API as their data source for distillation. This is evidenced by some users around the internet showcasing screenshots of Deepseek stating it was actually ChatGPT.

It remains to be seen if there will be support for this bill going forward or if President Donald Trump would sign the bill into law.

Some Chinese companies that would be affected by the bill if it is passed into law:

• Deepseek

• Hunyuan

• Tencent

• Alibaba

• Baidu

• Huawei

• Zhipu

It is unlikely that any diffusion models would be impacted at this point, but it will be difficult to know how broad and ambiguous the scope and intention of this bill is until it is ultimately adjudicated in court.

What do you think about the bill? Do you think it will become a law? Is the U.S. as free as we think it is? Sound off below and let me know what you think. If you like this kind of article, let me know!

Sources:
Senator Hawley's Website (US Govt website)
Text of the bill (US Govt website)
Prescribed punishments 50 US Code 4819

TechRadar - Open AI Says Deepseek Used It's Models Illegally

Associated Press - Did Deepseek copy ChatGPT (calls itself ChatGPT)