US Commerce Secretary Lutnick calls for AI push to ease trade barriers

Chapel Hill (North Carolina), Sep 3 (IANS) US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has urged G20 nations to use artificial intelligence to dismantle unnecessary trade barriers, strengthen global supply chains and make it easier for businesses to compete across borders.

In his closing remarks at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in North Carolina, Lutnick said technical standards would play a decisive role in determining whether emerging technologies promote trade, investment and global prosperity.

“Standards determine whether companies can bring new technologies to market, whether those technologies can connect across borders and whether you can actually compete globally or not,” he said.

The United States, Lutnick said, believed that standards could encourage innovation and increase international trade. But that would require open markets, competition and fair access for businesses.

“Technical standards and regulations should not be disguised as barriers to trade,” he said. “They should increase interoperability and allow the best technologies access to compete.”

Lutnick placed particular emphasis on standards developed in cooperation with industry. Private companies, he said, were directly involved in developing and deploying new technologies and could help turn established practices into flexible, technically sound and safe international standards.

He argued that AI could give governments and businesses better tools to measure, test and compare standards across countries. This, he said, could reduce dependence on assessments made by individual governments about whether products or technologies developed elsewhere were safe.

“We can study them, we can check them. We can know better by doing incredible comparisons,” Lutnick said.

AI could also be used to improve the standards themselves, identify weaknesses and make products and systems safer, he said.

“If we transform the way the standards and regulations on standards are set, we can undress unnecessary barriers to trade,” Lutnick said.

Greater interoperability and fewer unnecessary restrictions would particularly benefit small and medium-sized businesses seeking access to overseas markets, he added.

Lutnick also called on G20 members to examine the resilience of their supply chains and prepare for future disruptions. Governments should use AI to test existing assumptions, review burdensome regulations and identify weaknesses before they become serious economic problems, he said.

“Let’s check our supply chains. Let’s check how we’re interoperable. Let’s worry about where our weaknesses are. Let’s test them. Let’s study them,” he said.

The private sector, Lutnick said, should be closely involved in building infrastructure, expanding manufacturing capabilities and diversifying supply chains. Governments had to serve as active partners in that process.

“Our government’s role is to be an active partner, not a bystander,” he said.

Lutnick cited foreign investment in the United States as evidence of the benefits of a welcoming regulatory climate. Countries that encouraged investment and innovation would move ahead, while those placing excessive restrictions on industry and AI risked slowing their economies, he said.

“If you roll out the red carpet, you’ll succeed,” Lutnick said. “And if you put your hands up to stop them and stop industry, stop AI, you’re going to slow yourself down.”

He also offered a broader description of AI, saying its value went beyond the creation of machine intelligence.

“I think intelligence is the wrong word. I think it’s education,” Lutnick said. AI, he added, could give people access to some of the world’s greatest minds in their own languages and help them adapt that knowledge to their particular needs.

–IANS

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