John Markoff and Matthew Rosenberg had an article on the February 3, 2017 website of the New York Times, with the title above. Their article is about China’s aggressive push, and acceleration in their research with respect to Artificial Intelligence (AI); and, something I have written about frequently in the past. It is a disruptive area, full of surprises — both good and bad — and a race perhaps as critical as was the Manhattan Project and the race against Nazi Germany to develop the atomic bomb. In recognition of just how important the United States believes AI may be in future warfare, POTUS Obama’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, Robert Work has been spear-heading the Department of Defense (DoD)’s effort to maximize AI’s potential military benefits. But, much as the U.S.’s pursuit of an atomic bomb was not without peer competitors — the race to be the leader in the militarization of AI is not without competitors; and, it is not a given that the U.S. will win.
Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg write that, “the United States no longer has a monopoly on the technology (if we ever did), which is widely seen as a key factor in the next generation of warfare. The Pentagon’s plan to bring AI to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the [this] nascent technology field,” they write. “And, that shift is reflected in surprising commercial advances in AI among Chinese companies.”
The United States has always emphasized technological superiority as a major key to protecting the homeland and our allies; and most importantly, using technological and capability surprise to win on the battlefield; and, ultimately defeat any and all adversaries. If there is one area that is ripe for strategic and capability surprise, AI would be the poster child. In recognition of AI’s potential on the ‘battlefields’ of the future, POTUS Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, spearheaded the Defense Department’s effort in this domain with his ‘Third Offset Strategy,” which had/has a stated goal of maintaining a [technological] military advantage — in a renewed rivalry with China, and Russia,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg wrote.
“The new Chinese weapon typifies a strategy known as “remote warfare.” said John Arquilla, a military strategist at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. “The idea is to build large fleets of small ships that deploy missiles, to attack an enemy with larger ships like aircraft carriers.” The idea is to attack in a swarm, in large enough numbers to overwhelm the adversary’s defenses. “They are making their machines more creative,” Mr. Arquilla said. “A little bit of automation give these machines a tremendous boost,” and enables dynamic, and real-time re-targeting.
As the authors note, “well into the 1960s the United States held a military advantage [to a large degree] based on technological leadership on nuclear weapons.” Nuclear superiority yes; but, there is still no substitute for ingenuity, bravery, leadership on the battlefield, and out-thinking, and out-maneuvering the adversary. Having said that, the authors write that the emphasis on nuclear superiority began to shift to “smart weapons,” and cruise missiles, “aided by Silicon Valley’s ground-breaking advancements in computer chip technology, enhanced by ‘elegant’ intelligence targeting location/coordinates. “Now,” the Pentagon and the U.S. defense industrial base are making a full court press with respect to AI, robotic and autonomous systems. But then, so are America’s peer competitors.
“But, the global technology balance of power is shifting,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg argue. “In the 1980s, the emergence of the inexpensive, and universally available microchip — upended the Pentagon’s ability to control technological progress,” they write. “Control” is too strong a term to use in that argument; but, point taken. “Now,” they write, “rather than trickling down from the military and advanced corporate laboratories, today’s new technologies increasingly come from consumer electronic firms. As consumer electronics manufacturing moved to Asia. both Chinese companies, and state-run government laboratories began to increase their investment and commitment to AI, Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg note.
As an indication of China’s AI stature, “veteran Microsoft AI specialist, Qi Lu left the firm in January of this year, to become Chief Operating Officer at Baidu, [China’s ‘Amazon’] to spearhead the company’s goal to become a/the — global AI leader. “And last year, Tencent, developer of the mobile app, WeChat, a FaceBook competitor, created an AI research laboratory; and, began investing in U.S.-based AI companies.”
Just how far China’s AI efforts have progressed, is a matter of debate; and, depending on who you ask — China is either mimicking what the U.S. does — or, is beginning to establish itself as a potential Pier 1 competitor in this field. The truth, is probably somewhere in between. “The Chinese leadership is increasingly thinking about how to ensure they are competitive in the next wave of technologies,” said Adam Segal, a specialist in emerging technologies, and national security at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Last August, the New York Times noted, “the state-run, China Daily reported that the country had embarked on the development of a cruise missile with a “high level” of AI. The new system appears to be a response to a missile the U.S. Navy is expected to deploy in 2018 to counter China’s,” anti-access/anti-denial strategy in the Pacific, as well as Beijing’s increasingly aggressive military posture vis-a-vis the disputed island chain near Japan and the Philippines.
“Known as the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile, or L.R.A.S.M., it is described as a ‘semi-autonomous’ weapon.” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg wrote. According to the Pentagon, this means that though the targets are chosen by human soldiers, the missile uses AI to avoid defenses, and make final targeting decisions,” adjustments — also known as dynamic targeting. Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Biadu, said “the United States may be too myopic and self-confident to understand [and fully appreciate] the speed of the Chinese competition,” in the AI domain. “There are many occasions of something being simultaneously invented in China, or elsewhere, or being invented first in China; and then later, making it overseas,” he added. “But then, the U.S. media reports only on the U.S. version. This leads to a misperception [and hubris] of those ideas having first been invented in the United States.”
“A key example of Chinese progress that goes largely unreported in the U.S. is Iflytek, an AI company that has focused on speech recognition, and understanding natural language,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg write. “The company has won international competition — both in speech synthesis, and in translation between Chinese and English-language texts. The company, which Chinese technologists said has a close relationship with the government for development of surveillance technology, said it is working with the Ministry of Science and Technology on a “Humanoid Answering Robot.”
“Our goal is to send the machine to attend the college entrance examination, and be admitted by key national universities in the near future,” said Qingfeng Liu, Iflytek’s Chief Executive. “The speed of the Chinese technologists is noteworthy,” Mr, Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg wrote. “Last April, Gansha Wu, then the Director of Intel’s laboratory in China, left his post and began assembling a team of researchers from Intel and Google to build a self-driving car company. Last month, the company, Uisee Technology met its goal — taking a demonstration to the International Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas — after just nine months of work.” “The A.I. technologies, including machine vision, sensor fusion, planning and control on our car is completely home-brewed,” Mr. Wu said. “We wrote every line…..by ourselves.”
And, “the U.S. view of China’s [A.I.] advance may be changing,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg note. “Last October, a White House report on AI included several footnotes suggesting that China is now publishing more research than scholars here,” in America,” the authors observe. “Still, some say the quantity of academic papers does not tell us much about the [their] innovation. And, there is are indications that China has only recently begun to make AI a priority for its military systems.” “I think while China is definitely making progress in A.I. systems, it is nowhere close to matching the United States,” said Abhijit Singh, a former Indian military officer who is now a naval weapons analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
But, “Chinese researchers who are directly involved in A.I. research work in China, have a very different view,” the authors note. “It is indisputable that Chinese authors are a significant force in A.I.; and, their position has been increasing drastically in the past five years,” said Kai-Fu Lee, a Taiwanese-born A.I. researcher who played a key role in establishing both Microsoft’s and Google’s China-based research laboratories. “Mr. Lee, now a venture capitalist who invests in both China and the United States, acknowledged that the United States is still the global [A.I.] leader; but, believes that the gap [between the U.S. & China] has drastically narrowed,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg wrote. “Using a class analogy,” he said, “we might say grand-masters are still largely North American; but Chinese [researchers] occupy increasingly greater portions of the master-level A.I. scientists.”
“What is not in dispute,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg write, “is that the close ties between Silicon Valley and China — both in terms of investment and research; and, the open nature of much of the American A.I. research community, has made the most advanced technology available in China. In addition to setting up research outposts such as Baidu’s Silicon Valley A.I. Laboratory, Chinese citizens, including government employees, routinely audit Stanford University A.I. courses. One Stanford professor, Richard Socher, said it was easy to spot the Chinese nationals, because after the first few weeks, his students would often skip class, choosing instead to view videos of the lectures. The Chinese auditors, on the other hand, would continue to attend, taking their seats at the front of the classroom.”
“Artificial Intelligence is only one part of the tech frontier where China is advancing rapidly,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg note. “Last year, China brought the world’s fastest super-computer, the
Sunway TaihuLight, online, supplanting another Chinese model that had been the world’s fastest.”
FYI, I have written a couple of articles on this very issue here on my blog and they are accessible by typing in the title in the search bar. “The new supercomputer is thought to be part of a broader Chinese push to begin driving innovation, a shift from its role of a manufacturing hub for components and devices designed in the U.S. and elsewhere,” Mr. Markoff and Mr. Rosenberg note. “In a reflection of the desire to become a center of innovation, the processors in the new computer are of a native Chinese design. The earlier super-computer, the Tianhe 2, was powered by Intel’s Xeon processors, after it came online, the United States banned further export of the chips to China, in hopes of limiting China’s push into super-computing.”
The authors point out that these supercomputers aren’t necessarily dedicated to military, or intelligence purposes; and, like elsewhere around the world, these same super-computers are being used for the good of mankind, and by all sorts of public and private entities. But, there is no doubt that as artificial intelligence and the use/employment of super-computers matures — nations, and the darker angels of our nature will seek to exploit their benefits in all sorts of sinister ways.
The warning that both China and Russia, among others, are making substantial gains in the AI domain isn’t new; but, whether the U.S. has a well thought out, comprehensive, and holistic strategy remains elusive. Last August, the Defense Science Board (DSB) published a study on the state of AI — with respect to our adversaries and near peers. The comprehensive study issued a clarion call to the DoD and the U.S. national security establishment: The DSB concluded that “Immediate Action is required to counter enemy AI,” which is advancing faster than many expected, or appreciate.
To counter this emerging threat, the DSB recommends that: The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI) raise the priority of intelligence collection and analysis for foreign autonomous systems. Additionally, the DSB recommends that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, USD(AT&L) gather together a community of researchers to run tests, and scenarios — to discover counter-autonomy technologies,m surrogates, and solutions.”
Artificial Intelligence And The Future Of War
(I apologize for the font not being the same as above. I couldn’t figure out how to change it to match; and, do not have the time to re-type it. The thoughts below are from a previous article I wrote on AI Having said that……..
There are few subjects that can stir the imagination more so than AI. Almost everyday, there are articles by very bright people — who peer into the future and see AI and its use in vastly different scenarios. Notable visionaries such as billionaire Elon Musk and legendary theoretical physicist and cosmologist Dr. Stephen Hawking have been ‘pounding the table,’ and warning that “autonomous weapons will become the Kalishnikovs of tomorrow,” in reference to the Soviet AK-47 automatic rifle which has become the most popular and prolific assault rifle of all time. Others see a potential “terminator,” or something akin to the Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s film classic — “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where the computer/AI robot Hal — takes over the spacecraft and ‘kills’ one astronaut and nearly a second.
On the other side of the argument from Musk and Hawking, are individuals like Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baidu Research in Silicon Valley, and a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University who has stated that “worrying about killer robots is like worrying about over-population on Mars.” In other words, those who are sounding the clarion call on AI’s potential threat — are over-estimating, and over-hyping the threat that AI can and will pose in the not too distant future on the ‘fields of battle.’
Somewhere in between these two views is where the truth and AI’s future probably lay; but, there is no doubt that AI is one of those domains where capability and strategic surprise are lurking. And, it is really important that the DSB gave this emerging domain and threat some serious thought.
I have questioned in this blog many times — about what the adversary and near-peers were doing in this area. Are we the world’s AI leader? If so, by how much? If not, who is in the lead? What are the trends showing? Is there any indication or evidence that Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc., have a Manhattan-type project underway in an attempt to leap-ahead of everyone else? How soon do we think that AI will have more than a minimal role in future combat? How could the Islamic States of the future and the darker angels of our nature use AI in ways we cannot presently envision or understand? Could AI become the IED’s of the 2030’s/2040s, or sooner?
And perhaps most importantly — does it matter if China is ahead of us? Or, is this domain the equivalent of developing and using the atomic bomb in 1945? Lots of questions. I do not know if we actually are confident in the answers we do have.
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