There's no better way of ensuring you win a race than by setting the rules yourself. That may be behind the recent rush by countries, international organizations, and companies to put forward their visions for how the AI race should be governed. China became the latest to release a set of "ethical standards" for the development of AI last month, which might raise eyebrows given the country's well-documented AI-powered state surveillance program and suspect approaches to privacy and human rights. But given the recent flurry of AI guidelines, it may well have been motivated by a desire not to be left out of the conversation. The previous week the OECD, backed by the US, released its own "guiding principles" for the industry, and in April the EU released "ethical guidelines."