Search Results for: defense

The International Energy Agency’s latest annual gas market report, Gas 2018, estimated that global gas demand could reach more than 4,100 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2023. This is an increase from 3,740 bcm in 2017. Greater gas demands mean more oil rigs, and the machines on these rigs break down.

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.”

The healthcare industry holds perhaps the most responsibility of any industry when it comes to ensuring data privacy. A breach in electronic medical records (EMRs) could tarnish a healthcare company's reputation, put undue stress on patients, and render the company in violation of regulations.

The great power nations that master the use of artificial intelligence are likely to gain a tremendous military and economic benefits from the technology.
The United States benefitted greatly from a relatively fast adoption of the internet, and many of its most powerful companies today are the global giants of the internet age.
When it comes to its technological and economic future, the US generally believes:

Government contracts are notoriously hard to acquire. It takes many months of painstaking work to get through the gamut of regulations that weigh about 8.5 lb when printed out. Startups and small companies, including those developing artificial intelligence, often do not have the resources to compete for a share of this market. The US Air Force is changing that by streamlining the process in what it calls Pitch Days, the first of which was on March 6 and 7, 2019 in New York.

(Alternative Montaigne-like title for this essay: "That the Meek Must Feign Virtue")
When I first became focused on the military and existential concerns of AI in 2012, there was only a small handful of publications and organizations focused on the ethical concerns of AI. MIRI, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and the personal blogs of Ben Goertzel and Nick Bostrom was most of my reading at the time.
These limited sources focused mostly on the consequences of artificial general intelligence (i.e. post-human intelligence), and not on day-to-day concerns about privacy, algorithmic transparency, and governing big tech firms.
By 2014, artificial intelligence made its way firmly onto the radar of almost everyone in the tech world. New startups began (by 2015) ubiquitously including “machine learning” in their pitch decks, and 3-4-year-old startups were re-branding themselves around the value proposition of “AI.”
Not until later 2016 did the AI ethics wave make it into the mainstream beyond the level of Elon Musk’s tweets.
By 2017, some business conferences began having breakout sessions around AI ethics - mostly the practical day-to-day concerns (privacy, security, transparency). In 2017 and 2018, entire conferences and initiatives sprung up around the moral implications of AI, including the ITU’s “AI for Good” event, among others. The AAAI’s “AI, Ethics, and Society” event started in 2016, but picked up significant steam in the following years.
So why the swell in popularity of AI ethics and AI governance?
Why didn’t this happen back in 2012?
The most obvious answer is that the technology didn’t show obvious promise for disrupting business and life back in 2012. People in Silicon Valley, never mind elsewhere, didn’t have AI squarely on their radar - and today - AI and machine learning are recognized squarely as disruptive forces that will likely change the human experience, and certainly the nature of human work.
Now that AI is recognized as a massively disruptive force, people are interested in ensuring that its impacts on society and individuals is good. Certainly, much of the origin of “AI Good” initiatives stems from a desire to do good.
It would be childishly naive to believe that AI ethics isn’t also about power. Individuals, organizations, and nations are now realizing just how serious their disadvantage will be without AI innovation. For these groups, securing one’s interests in the future - securing power - implies a path other than innovation, and regulation is the next best thing.
In this essay I’ll explore the landscape of AI power, and the clashing incentives of AI innovators and AI ethics organizations.

Logistics in the military encompasses more functions than most people realize. In modern warfare, that means large quantities of data to sift through in order to make decisions regarding supply, transport, communications, and so on. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in one or more areas in logistics could help speed up that process and make it more agile.

Vladimir Putin has said:

“Whoever becomes the leader in [artificial intelligence] will become the ruler of the world.”