China's ByteDance sets up AI safety team, launches global hiring drive

By Eduardo Baptista BEIJING, Oct 15 (Reuters) — Chinese tech giant ByteDance's AI research unit Seed has created an Alignment & Preparedness team and launched a global drive to recruit 10 researchers, saying it will make a long-term investment in AI safety for its increasingly capable models. The hiring push comes as scrutiny of AI-agent safety grows in China and the US, especially as developers give them autonomy to access the Internet. AI alignment refers to efforts to ensure advanced AI systems act in line with human goals and safety requirements, particularly when carrying out complex, multi-step tasks. ByteDance's announcement is a rare public disclosure by a major Chinese AI developer of a dedicated effort focused on frontier-model safety, alignment and preparedness for emerging risks. State-backed newspaper The Paper reported on Tuesday that Seed was the first Chinese frontier AI lab to establish a standalone safety and alignment department. The move also comes amid broader US-China discussions on AI guardrails, safety risks and channels for communicating about major AI-related incidents, even as the two countries compete for leadership in advanced AI. As model capabilities