Superpowers Eye AI Domination
In light of global political shift underway since the collapse of the Soviet Union almost three decades ago, the United States has enjoyed a brief but increasingly imperiled position as the world’s sole superpower. With the worldwide expansion of economic, political, military, and technological power to other growing nations, however, other nations may soon unseat the United States in one or all of these spheres.
With promising breakthroughs in the nascent field of AI occurring around the globe, the world’s superpowers –namely The United States, China, and Russia– are each seeking to gain AI supremacy in a growing “race” compared by some to the nuclear arms race. With the United States’ leadership in AI research being challenged by China –which seeks to gain AI eminence by 2030– and Russia as well, who will win the race to what has been called by some the “last invention” of mankind? Futurism.Com explores the issue, as well as listing a short overview of each nation’s ambitions in AI:
“The US, Russia, and China are all in agreement that artificial intelligence will be the key technology underpinning national power in the future,” Gregory C. Allen, Center for a New American Security fellow, told WIRED. He is the coauthor of a recent report, commissioned by the Director of National Intelligence, that concluded: “As with prior transformative military technologies, the national security implications of AI will be revolutionary, not merely different. Governments around the world will consider, and some will enact extraordinary policy measures in response, perhaps as radical as those considered in the early decades of nuclear weapons.”
The AI race between China, Russia, and the US is different from any arms race before, in that the technology also has obvious and immediate commercial applications. The same technology that makes Facebook so good at tagging you in photos can help government agencies find suspects and spies. Autonomous cars require the same kinds of technologies that autonomous drones and military land vehicles need. Private companies are in effect conducting military research, whether they intend to or not.
