Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States could sanction overseas artificial-intelligence developers for allegedly extracting capabilities from American models, claiming officials had found U.S. model “watermarks” in many Chinese systems.
“This administration supports open-source models, but what we do not support is IP theft,” Bessent said during a July 21 interview on Fox Business.
“If we see, especially, that overseas models are stealing from our great companies, we have the ability to sanction them because of this theft,” he said.
Bessent did not identify the Chinese companies or models under scrutiny, explain what he meant by “watermarks,” or name the sanctions authority the administration might use….
Bessent Says US Could Sanction Chinese AI Developers Over Alleged Model Theft
