US senator wants to slap prison term, $1M fine on anyone aiding Chinese AI with ... downloads?

As UK proposes laws against neural-nets-for-pedophiles

Americans may have to think twice about downloading a Chinese AI model or investing in a company behind such a neural network in future. A law proposed last month by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), if successfully passed by Congress, would impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison or $1 million in fines for violating its restrictions on AI-related trade and collaboration.

And that's for individuals. US enterprises could face fines of up to $100 million if they're caught conducting AI research in the Middle Kingdom or collaborating with Chinese companies on machine learning tech, if the bill is signed into law.

The proposed legislation [PDF], which we emphasize is nowhere close to becoming law, was introduced just as Silicon Valley stocks were rocked by the release of Chinese model builder DeepSeek's first reasoning model R1, which is not only said to be competitive with American AI trendsetter OpenAI, but DeepSeek claims to have achieved this feat efficiently and relatively cheaply.

The release was followed by yet more models from DeepSeek and other Chinese devs, including Alibaba's new flagship Qwen 2.5-Max, which we looked at last week.

The revelation that US efforts to stifle Chinese AI development through trade restrictions on accelerators hasn't sat well with members of Congress.

Hawley's proposal, dubbed the Decoupling America's Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act of 2025, seeks to block US persons and entities from conducting AI research in China, transferring AI-related intellectual property, or investing in Chinese AI firms - imposing stiff fines and penalties for violations.

This includes prohibitions not just on the export of AI infrastructure, such as semiconductors or intellectual property, but also on the import of AI technologies and intellectual property from China - which could cover model weights, though the legislation does not explicitly state this, as well as open source chip blueprints. This may therefore extend to downloading AI models as well as (say) AI-accelerating RISC-V CPU designs.

Americans found in violation of these rules would be subject to penalties as laid out under section 1760 of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018, which can include criminal penalties of up to 20 years of imprisonment and up to $1 million in fines per violation in addition to civil penalties.

The bill also proposes penalties for Americans and US companies found to be transferring to or conducting AI research in China. This would include fines of up to $100 million along with the forfeit of any license, contract, subcontract, grant, or public benefit previously awarded by federal agencies. Additionally, officers and employees of companies found to be engaging in these acts would be subject to fines of up to $1 million.

Even investing in Chinese firms engaged in AI development would be prohibited if the bill were signed into law, which could have major implications for American shareholders of Chinese stocks.

Under the proposed bill, Americans found to hold an interest or providing financial support to Chinese entities involved in AI development would be subject to civil fines of twice the amount of the transaction or $250,000, whichever is greater, and criminal penalties of $1 million or 20 years in prison.

How such a bill could actually be enforced, particularly with regard to open models, like DeepSeek R1 that are freely available for download online, isn't clear. However, all of this assumes the bill ever makes it to US President Donald Trump's desk. We've asked Senator Hawley's office for clarification, and will let you know more if we hear back. ®

Not just the USA... The UK government intends to pass laws that will make it illegal to possess, build, or share AI models designed to create child sexual abuse material – be it imagery generated from full or partially from scratch, innocuous pictures altered by software to make victims appear nude, and so on. The punishment will be up to five years in the clink.

The proposed laws will also ban websites where this kind of material can be exchanged and perverts can discuss ways to groom kids, and ban owning any documentation on how to use AI to generate this stuff.

One wonders if British politicians will write the legislation carefully to not outlaw the possession and distribution of general-purpose uncensored locally-run models that could potentially generate unlawful stuff, as opposed to models designed specifically for serving pedophiles, or if they'll ban the whole lot of it for good measure.

Earlier: UK government pledges law against sexually explicit deepfakes

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