Congress may soon consider legislation reportedly being drafted by Senator Cornyn that could heighten scrutiny of Chinese investments in artificial intelligence and other sensitive emerging technologies considered critical to U.S. national security interests. The legislation is intended to address concerns that China has circumvented the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), including through joint ventures, minority stakes, and early-stage investments in start-ups. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis testified last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee, CFIUS is clearly outdated, and change is warranted. That said, it is critical to recognize that the strategic challenge of Chinas advances in artificial intelligence necessitates a much more far-reaching response.
Chinas rise in artificial intelligence has become a reality. Whether the metric considered is the magnitude of publications and patents, the frequency of cutting-edge advances, or the aggregate levels of investment, it is evident that China has the capability to compete withand may even surpassthe U.S. in artificial intelligence. For the time being, the U.S. may retain an edge, but it is unlikely to sustain a decisive advantage in the long term.
In this context, an update to CFIUS may represent one helpful step to reduce damaging technology transfers, but will not, by itself, adequately address this critical strategic challenge. Hopefully, the proposed changes to CFIUS will take a targeted approach, while avoiding potential adverse externalities that could inadvertently undermine U.S. competitiveness. For instance, future scrutiny of Chinese technology deals related to artificial intelligence should focus on those involving the most critical, sensitive components, including specialized machine learning chips such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). However, CFIUS can be an unwieldy process that may readily become politicized or inadvertently constrain foreign direct investment that actually supports American innovation. It will be also important to ensure that appropriate concerns about restricting the transfer of sensitive technologies to China do not distract from the fundamental, underlying challengeto ensure enduring U.S. competitiveness against this backdrop of Chinas advances in indigenous innovation.
It is clearly a mistake to underestimate Chinas competitiveness in this space based on the problematic, even dangerous assumption that China cant innovate and only relies upon mimicry and intellectual property theft. That is an outdated idea contradicted by overwhelming evidence. It is true that China has pursued large-scale industrial espionage, enabled through cyber and human means, and will likely continue to take advantage of technology transfers, overseas investments, and acquisitions targeting cutting-edge strategic technologies. However, it is undeniable that Chinas capability to pursue independent innovation has increased considerably. This is aptly demonstrated by Chinas cutting-edge advances in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and quantum information science.
Neither the U.S. nor China is likely to be able to secure undisputed advantage in a knowledge-based field like artificial intelligence. Today, the majority of cutting-edge research and development in artificial intelligence tends to occur within the private sector because, among other things, that is where much of the money and many of the best people are. Furthermore, unlike past breakthroughs in military technologies, artificial intelligence has massive and immediate commercial implications. The resulting flows of data, knowledge, talent, and capital across borders are challenging, if not infeasible, to constrain, particularly given the intense competition and tremendous commercial incentives in a globalized, networked world. The diffusion of advances in artificial intelligence thus occurs rapidly. Traditionally, the U.S. has sought to secure its technological predominance through such measures as CFIUS or export controls. However, these approaches will likely prove less effective for artificial intelligence and other emerging, dual-use technologies in which the U.S. is no longer such a singular locus of innovation.
Indeed, China aspires to lead the world in artificial intelligence. Under the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, China has launched a new artificial intelligence megaproject. Artificial Intelligence 2.0 will advance an ambitious, multibillion-dollar national agenda to achieve predominance in this critical technological domain, including through extensive funding for basic and applied research and development with commercial and military applications. In addition, China has established a national deep learning laboratory under Baidus leadership, which will pursue research including deep learning, computer vision and sensing, computer-listening, biometric identification, and new forms of human-computer interaction.
Chinas future advances in artificial intelligence could also be enabled by critical systemic and structural advantages, including the magnitude of data and talent available, as well as the sheer size of its market. By 2030, China will possess 30 percent of the worlds data, according to a recent report from CCID Consulting. Beyond the available pool of talent within Chinaan estimated 43 percent of the worlds trained AI scientistsmajor Chinese technology companies aggressively compete for talent in Silicon Valley. For instance, both Baidu and Tencent have established artificial intelligence laboratories in Silicon Valley. Concurrently, Chinas Thousand Talents Plan has also concentrated on the recruitment of top overseas experts. These strategic scientists, educated at the worlds leading institutions, are intended to contribute to Chinas high-tech and emerging industries.
These developments could have significant implications for U.S. national security because the Chinese leadership seeks to ensure that advances in artificial intelligence can be rapidly transferred for use in a military context, through a national strategy of civil-military integration (or military-civil fusion, ). This agenda has become a high-level priority that will be directed by the Civil-Military Integration Development Commission, established in early 2017 under the leadership of President Xi Jinping himself. According to Lieutenant General Liu Guozhi, director of the Central Military Commissions Science and Technology Commission, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) should pursue an approach of shared construction, shared enjoyment, and shared use () for artificial intelligence as part of this agenda of civil-military integration. In this regard, even ostensibly civilian advances in artificial intelligence could eventually be leveraged by the PLA.
The PLA seeks to capitalize on the transformation of todays informatized () ways of warfare into future intelligentized () warfare. Lieutenant General Liu Guozhi anticipates that artificial intelligence will result in a profound military revolution. To date, the PLAs initial thinking on artificial intelligence in warfare has been influenced by its close study of U.S. defense innovation initiatives. In the Third Offset, the Department of Defense has focused on artificial intelligence and autonomy, including human-machine collaboration and teaming. (For example, through Project Maven, the DoD seeks to advance its use of big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, and convolutional neural networks, including in an initial pathfinder project that will automate and augment the video data collected by UAVs.) However, the PLAs evolving approach to artificial intelligence in warfare will likely diverge from that of the U.S. For instance, the PLA appears especially focused on the utility of artificial intelligence in command decision-making, war-gaming and simulation, as well as training.
Going forward, artificial intelligence has impactful and disruptive military applications, which both the U.S. and China seek to leverage to enhance their military power. Each countrys advances in artificial intelligence will be critical not only to their military capabilities but also to their future economic competitiveness. U.S.-China strategic competition in this field extends far beyond the issue of controlling technology transfers. As Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, who leads Project Maven, stated last week, It is hubris to suggest our potential adversaries are not as capable or even more capable of far-reaching and deeply embedded innovation.
This is equally true for both commercial and military innovation, thus highlighting the unique challenge that dual-use technologies like artificial intelligence represent. Although proposed legislation to update CFIUS could address one aspect of the issue, the U.S. should also focus on ensuring adequate funding for scientific research, averting the risks of an innovation deficit, and competing aggressively to attract leading talent in this field. The U.S. must prioritize nurturing a favorable innovation ecosystem in order to enable future advances in artificial intelligence and thus enhance its long-term competitiveness.
Thanks so much to Paul Triolo for sharing his insights on these issues.
Original post:
Beyond CFIUS: The Strategic Challenge of China's Rise in Artificial Intelligence - Lawfare (blog)
- Classic reasoning systems like Loom and PowerLoom vs. more modern systems based on probalistic networks - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Using Amazon's cloud service for computationally expensive calculations - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Software environments for working on AI projects - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- New version of my NLP toolkit - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Semantic Web: through the back door with HTML and CSS - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Java FastTag part of speech tagger is now released under the LGPL - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Defining AI and Knowledge Engineering - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Great Overview of Knowledge Representation - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Something like Google page rank for semantic web URIs - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My experiences writing AI software for vehicle control in games and virtual reality systems - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The URL for this blog has changed - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- I have a new page on Knowledge Management - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- N-GRAM analysis using Ruby - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Good video: Knowledge Representation and the Semantic Web - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Using the PowerLoom reasoning system with JRuby - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Machines Like Us - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- RapidMiner machine learning, data mining, and visualization tool - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- texai.org - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NLTK: The Natural Language Toolkit - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My OpenCalais Ruby client library - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Ruby API for accessing Freebase/Metaweb structured data - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Protégé OWL Ontology Editor - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- New version of Numenta software is available - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Very nice: Elsevier IJCAI AI Journal articles now available for free as PDFs - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Verison 2.0 of OpenCyc is available - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- What’s Your Biggest Question about Artificial Intelligence? [Article] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Minimax Search [Knowledge] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Decision Tree [Knowledge] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- More AI Content & Format Preference Poll [Article] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- New Planners Solve Rescue Missions [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Neural Network Learns to Bluff at Poker [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Pushing the Limits of Game AI Technology [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Mining Data for the Netflix Prize [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Interview with Peter Denning on the Principles of Computing [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Decision Making for Medical Support [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Neural Network Creates Music CD [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- jKilavuz - a guide in the polygon soup [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Artificial General Intelligence: Now Is the Time [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Apply AI 2007 Roundtable Report [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- What Would You do With 80 Cores? [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Software Finds Learning Language Child's Play [News] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Artificial Intelligence in Games [Article] - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Artificial Intelligence Resources - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Alan Turing: Mathematical Biologist? - April 25th, 2012 [April 25th, 2012]
- BBC Horizon: The Hunt for AI ( Artificial Intelligence ) - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Can computers have true artificial intelligence" Masonic handshake" 3rd-April-2012 - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Kevin B. Korb - Interview - Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity p3 - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Artificial Intelligence - 6 Month Anniversary - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Science Breakthroughs - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Hitman: Blood Money - Part 49 - Stupid Artificial Intelligence! - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Research Members Turned Off By HAARP Artificial Intelligence - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Artificial Intelligence Lecture No. 5 - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 2012 - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Charlie Rose - Artificial Intelligence - Video - April 30th, 2012 [April 30th, 2012]
- Expert on artificial intelligence to speak at EPIIC Nights dinner - May 4th, 2012 [May 4th, 2012]
- Filipino software engineers complete and best thousands on Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Course - May 4th, 2012 [May 4th, 2012]
- Vodafone xone™ Hackathon Challenges Developers and Entrepreneurs to Build a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence ... - May 4th, 2012 [May 4th, 2012]
- Rocket Fuel Packages Up CPG Booster - May 4th, 2012 [May 4th, 2012]
- 2 Filipinos finishes among top in Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence course - May 5th, 2012 [May 5th, 2012]
- Why Your Brain Isn't A Computer - May 5th, 2012 [May 5th, 2012]
- 2 Pinoy software engineers complete Stanford's AI course - May 7th, 2012 [May 7th, 2012]
- Percipio Media, LLC Proudly Accepts Partnership With MIT's Prestigious Computer Science And Artificial Intelligence ... - May 10th, 2012 [May 10th, 2012]
- Google Driverless Car Ok'd by Nevada - May 10th, 2012 [May 10th, 2012]
- Moving Beyond the Marketing Funnel: Rocket Fuel and Forrester Research Announce Free Webinar - May 10th, 2012 [May 10th, 2012]
- Rocket Fuel Wins 2012 San Francisco Business Times Tech & Innovation Award - May 13th, 2012 [May 13th, 2012]
- Internet Week 2012: Rocket Fuel to Speak at OMMA RTB - May 16th, 2012 [May 16th, 2012]
- How to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Ads -- Rocket Fuel's VP of Products, Eshwar Belani, to Lead MarketingProfs ... - May 16th, 2012 [May 16th, 2012]
- The Digital Disruptor To Banking Has Just Gone International - May 16th, 2012 [May 16th, 2012]
- Moving Beyond the Marketing Funnel: Rocket Fuel Announce Free Webinar Featuring an Independent Research Firm - May 23rd, 2012 [May 23rd, 2012]
- MASA Showcases Latest Version of MASA SWORD for Homeland Security Markets - May 23rd, 2012 [May 23rd, 2012]
- Bluesky Launches Drones for Aerial Surveying - May 23rd, 2012 [May 23rd, 2012]
- Artificial Intelligence: What happened to the hunt for thinking machines? - May 25th, 2012 [May 25th, 2012]
- Bubble Robots Move Using Lasers [VIDEO] - May 25th, 2012 [May 25th, 2012]
- UHV assistant professors receive $10,000 summer research grants - May 27th, 2012 [May 27th, 2012]
- Artificial intelligence: science fiction or simply science? - May 28th, 2012 [May 28th, 2012]
- Exetel taps artificial intelligence - May 29th, 2012 [May 29th, 2012]
- Software offers brain on the rain - May 29th, 2012 [May 29th, 2012]
- New Dean of Science has high hopes for his faculty - May 30th, 2012 [May 30th, 2012]
- Cognitive Code Announces "Silvia For Android" App - May 31st, 2012 [May 31st, 2012]
- A Rat is Smarter Than Google - June 5th, 2012 [June 5th, 2012]