Artificial
Intelligence is a frighteningly powerful new tool — and weapon. Who
and what will it serve? In the U.S., tech giants Facebook, Google,
and Amazon and their corporate agendas; in China, the needs of the
public and the economy. These two models should be thought through
now.
by
Jim Carey
Part
1
Speaking
to a group of students in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin
made a bold proclamation. “Artificial intelligence is the
future,” he said, stating that this is a fact “not only
for Russia but for all humankind. It comes with colossal
opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict.
Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of
the world.”
This
single quote from Putin was cast in an ominous light by Western
media, even leading SpaceX founder — and the most recognizable
critic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — Elon Musk to warn that the
race for AI superiority “at a national level” may be the
“most likely cause” of a potential world war. While the
Western media may want their consumers to believe that this was the
latest development in the tactics used in “Russian aggression”
and the next logical step from the dreaded “troll farms,” those
more grounded in reality acknowledged that, while Putin is right,
Russia is not the number two competitor with the United States.
The real
competitor in the race for AI superiority should be obvious. There is
only one nation quickly catching up to the perceived technological
superiority of the United States: China.
Not only
is China’s tech industry catching up with the United States but,
unlike Washington, Beijing is directly investing billions of dollars
in AI research projects. Washington has ceded both control of AI
research and the drafting of laws governing and guiding tech
companies to the CEOs of said companies and their lobbyists.
There
are also major differences between Beijing and Silicon Valley, with
the former seeking to use AI for improving human life economic
systems in conjunction with the state while the latter seeks to
exploit, extort and monitor humanity through the submission of the
state.
These
two approaches are night and day and account for many of the reasons
that the West is truly threatened by the race for AI between the
neoliberal privatizers in the U.S. and those pushing an alternate
model in China that will largely operate as an extension of state
economic management.
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