DOMINANT ANGLE
Rome is taking heed of economist Gita Gopinath's warning: without a US-China agreement on artificial intelligence security, the world is leaving things to chance.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
Gita Gopinath (Harvard, former number two at the IMF) : "We're relying on luck, and so far, we've been lucky" when it comes to AI risks, citing the "OpenAI-Hugging Face incident" as a warning sign
- 02
Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary : "The talks were a success" after the first day of negotiations with China in New York, with an agreement to meet again on AI
- 03
Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang mentions a "good atmosphere" and confirms that discussions, focusing on AI, trade, and investments, will continue on Monday
ANALYSIS
Rome, Monday, September 21, 2026. The Italian press first retains a warning from an economist rather than an official diplomatic announcement. In La Repubblica, Gita Gopinath, an economist at Harvard and former number two at the IMF, describes a world that "is leaving things to chance" in the face of the risks of artificial intelligence: "We are relying on luck, and so far, we have been lucky. But we cannot assume that this will last forever." She cites the "OpenAI-Hugging Face incident" as a warning signal and believes that policymakers are being outpaced by the speed of AI progress, while Washington and Beijing are treating it as a strategic competition that neither can afford to lose.
It is in this climate that ANSA reports, via Bloomberg, the comments of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the end of the first day of negotiations with China in New York on Sunday: "The talks were a success." Beijing and Washington have agreed to meet again on artificial intelligence. On the Chinese side, trade negotiator Li Chenggang mentions a "good atmosphere" and confirms that the discussions, which are to continue on Monday, focused on AI, trade exchanges, and investments.
For Rome, the stakes go beyond the sole Trump-Xi summit scheduled in Washington on Thursday: Gopinath hopes that the meeting will result in "at least a coordinated attempt to guarantee AI security", estimating that "the world really needs it". She links this issue to a series of successive shocks that have thickened the fog in which decision-makers are evolving: the "Liberation Day" customs duties, the war in Iran, and the energy crisis that followed, according to the image she had used as early as May 2025 at the IMF.
The Italian press currently only has second-hand reported statements on the exact content of the notification mechanism proposed by Washington; neither Bessent nor the Chinese delegation details its operation in the available excerpts. The emphasis is on the principle of a forthcoming formal dialogue, rather than its technical modalities or precise schedule.
