AI Articles and Analysis in Government

The general premise of this article is different from most of my previous AI Power articles.

While most of the articles in this series have related to the near-term struggles for power between organizations and governments with regards to regulation, data, and international policy, this article will focus on the long-term trajectory that AI and technology are headed towards and what that means for the most powerful nations and organizations.

This article was written and contributed by Thomas A. Campbell, Ph.D. and Jon Fetzer of FutureGrasp, and was edited and published by the Emerj team.

Event Title: Channel News Asia TV Spot

Event Host: Channel News Asia TV

Event Title: INTERPOL World 2019

Event Host: INTERPOL

Date: July 2 - 4, 2019

Alternative Montaigne-like Article Title: "That the Meek Will Stand United for Only as Long as it Behooves Their Aims"
Today, the world of AI ethics is a harmonious ecosystem of organizations with uncontroversial and reasonable, respectable aims.

The idea of using artificial intelligence (AI) in the military scares many people in the US, especially when it comes to the Army. The US Army typically operates on the ground, and so it may be uncomfortably closer to home for some people.

It isn't surprising that many Google search results for "artificial intelligence for government surveillance" involve China. The consensus is that China is either catching up or overtaking the US in AI research, and it's quite open about using AI for government surveillance of its own people.

The Chinese military, or People's Liberation Army, is focusing heavily on artificial intelligence. However, China's race to develop "smarter," cheaper AI technology for the military is not linear, but instead a many-pronged strategy that involved the central government, domestic companies, and international trade. Gregory Allen of the Center for a New American Security published a report on China's AI strategy, in which he said:
Chinese military leaders increasingly refer to intelligent or “intelligentized” military technology as their confident expectation for the future basis of warfare. Use of the term “intelligentized” is meant to signify a new stage of military technology beyond the current stage based on information technology.
He also reported that “total Chinese national and local government spending on AI to implement these plans is not publicly disclosed, but it is clearly in the tens of billions of dollars.”