The announcement earlier in May from the White House was blunt: The federal government is creating a committee of academics and private industry experts to explore the untapped potential of artificial intelligence, or AI — the set of technologies that allows computers to think and make connections just as humans.
“We cannot be passive,” Michael Kratsios, deputy chief technology officer of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said on May 10 at a summit focused on AI. “To realize the full potential of AI for the American people, it will require the combined efforts of industry, academia, and government.”
Kratsios’ comments and the meeting were acknowledgments of the growing importance AI occupies in modern life. The technology already is widespread around the world, used in everyday conveniences such as autopilot functions on planes to ride-sharing apps, voice recognition and driverless cars. Leaders also say its untapped potential is far-ranging.
“Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told students last fall.
As the U.S. considers a more formal plan to preserve its status as a global leader in applied technology, some experts are criticizing the Trump administration for not moving faster in research, investment and developing a national strategy on AI already such as its main competitor, China.
“We have been accustomed to being a global leader in technology and are taking leadership for granted, but it’s not a birthright,” says Paul Scharre, a senior fellow and director of the technology and national security program at the Washington , D.C.-based security think tank Center for a New American Security.
The U.S., China, and Russia, are only a few of the countries that have announced they are ready to invest in research and in industries to keep pace with a technology that some say is changing the world. Smaller countries, such as the U.K. , are exploring ways to become leaders in niche areas, while others such as South Korea see artificial intelligence as a way of maintaining their sovereignty by offsetting potential military threats.
In order for the new White House committee to succeed, it should foster academic research and better connections with the industries that develop AI applications, say experts. More importantly, it should look into regulating some of the practices in this field.
“We don’t need the same kind of regulatory approach that Europe has; we don’t need the same kind of heavy-handed approach of government-driven investment that China has,” Scharre says. “The American model works very well, but there are places where we do want to think about smart regulations to manage the societal effects of the technology.”
China’s Ambitions to Become a World Leader
China has set an ambitious target of becoming the leader in this field by 2030 and transform AI work into an industry worth $150 billion. Beijing already recognizes that will take work. By 2020 the central government says the country will need to develop new AI theories and technologies in a fast-changing field, according to the Chinese State Council. By 2025, China’s industries should be transformed by breakthroughs in AI, while the following five years will seal the country’s status as a world leader in the technology.
“China is investing massive amounts of resources in AI,” Alex Turkeltaub, co-founder of a machine-learning platform for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, said on Fox News. A massive population, few data privacy laws and large technology companies aided by government policies that hinder U.S. companies’ entry into the market aid AI development in China, Turkeltaub said.
The Asian giant already has big platforms to experiment with, such as e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba, an Amazon-like website, and Baidu, a multinational technology company that focuses on internet services and hosts China’s dominant search engine.
Yet these companies’ main advantage may be that their U.S. competitor doesn’t seem to fully understand the Chinese potential, especially in the public sector, Scharre says.
“It’s not that China is trying to get into the AI space; they are in the AI space and they are probably a bigger player in artificial intelligence than most [of our] leaders in the national security community understand.”
Across Europe: Weapons, Startups and Ethics
In Russia, Putin is still very much interested in AI applications for the military. According to a 2017 Harvard University report, “the Russian Military Industrial Committee has approved an aggressive plan that would have 30 percent of Russian combat power consist of entirely remote-controlled and autonomous robotic platforms by 2030.” Such a goal seems to be in line with Putin’s belief that the future of war lies in technology and that drones could play a crucial role in establishing supremacy on the battlefield.
“When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender,” Russia’s Putin said in September.
Europe’s giants also are stepping into the realm of artificial intelligence. France announced it will invest more than $1.5 billion in research and in supporting startups in the next five years as part of President Emmanuel Macron’s strategy to allow France to focus on the disruptive opportunities AI presents for many industries.
“France missed out on all previous technological revolutions, such as robotics,” said the administration in a report by newspaper Le Figaro. “It must not miss the AI train, too.”
While Macron’s plan has been criticized by French media for being too small compared to the size of investments that the U.S. and China are putting into AI, the French president said there are some applications that he is particularly drawn to.
In the U.K., the government is looking to secure a role as a global leader in ethical AI standards. “The U.K. is unlikely to be able to rival the scale of investments made in the United States and China,” according to goals that the British Parliament announced. The nation should invest more in research centers and the legal aspects of the use of AI. The goal, the announcement suggests, is to have the U.K. set global standards for a technology that poses still many ethical concerns.
“The U.K. has a unique opportunity to shape AI positively for the public’s benefit and to lead the international community in AI’s ethical development, rather than passively accept its consequences,” said Lord Clement-Jones, chairman of the AI Committee in the House of Lords.
Controversy Over Autonomous Weapons in South Korea
In South Korea, AI researchers from 30 countries announced this past March that they will cease collaboration with KAIST, one of the country’s leading research universities, if it does not end its work with the main arms company in the area.
“At a time when the United Nations is discussing how to contain the threat posed to international security by autonomous weapons, it is regrettable that a prestigious institution like KAIST looks to accelerate the arms race to develop such weapons,” read the letter.
KAIST later announced it is not interested in developing autonomous weapons, but will continue its AI research for military and demographic purposes. The country recently reported more seniors than children and is considered the most rapidly aging nation in the developed world.
“The number of young children is declining but at the same time we need (an) army and soldiers,” says Joungho Kim, KAIST’s associate vice president of research. “AI can help for defense, in security and supply chains and training, so we can reduce the defense taxes and so on.”
South Korea’s government, a heavy investor and supporter of local technology development, announced that they will respond to a global shortage of AI engineers by creating more schools to focus on this area.
“The government announced they will start at least six new AI schools by 2020 and they have a plan to educate more than 5,000 new high quality engineers in Korea,” Kim says.
While companies and governments are lured into AI’s applicability and talking about an artificial intelligence-driven revolution which they’d want to be part of, experts say more could have been done in both the public and the private sector at an earlier stage.
“The technology is progressing so quickly and the use cases are expanding so broadly that it’s important to engage as soon as possible,” says Max Stier, president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, a D.C.-based non-partisan nonprofit that strives to make the U.S. government more efficient. “So one can argue, ‘Why not earlier?'”
Though the technology still poses risks — scientists are still trying to figure out what happens when AI-driven machines “learn” too much with the data they have — we are still far from allowing robots and machines to take over our lives. Yet one thing is for sure — AI is attracting more and more interest from governments around the world and the trend will only grow stronger in the next years, say experts.
“You have to believe we will see a focus around all technologically advanced countries as it’s fundamental to a whole broad range of possible improvements,” Stier concluded.
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The Potential Winners of the Global Artificial Intelligence Race originally appeared on usnews.com
