Pursuit of Military AI Increasing Risk of Nuclear War Between China, US: Report

A model of the Wing Loong II weaponized drone for the China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp. is displayed at a military drone conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Feb. 25, 2018. (Jon Gambrell/AP)

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) with military applications may be increasing the likelihood of an armed conflict between China and the United States, a new report says.

New AI uses within the military community, combined with ongoing tensions between the United States and communist China, are increasing the risk of strategic catastrophe, according to a new report (pdf) by the Center for a New American Security think tank.

The report says that “the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between the United States and [China]” is combining with “the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies, including for military applications.”

“Taken together, the emergence of military AI will likely deepen U.S.-China rivalry and increase strategic risks.”

The report thus seeks to examine the potential “pathways” through which military AI could undermine global stability or contribute to a new war and provides policy recommendations to avoid such a catastrophic conflict.

Military AI Key to CCP Ambitions

Military AI is central to the global ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state.

As such, the report says the regime is “moving quickly to integrate AI into its military.” The report claims that the regime believes its totalitarian system of government gives it an advantage in that effort over a politically divided United States.

At the heart of the effort is the CCP’s goal of “intelligentization,” a transformation of warfare through the mass integration of AI, automation, and big data.

“AI… plays a key role in China’s military ambitions, especially its goal to become a ‘world-class military’ by midcentury, in part through the ‘intelligentization’ of its forces,” the report says.

“Intelligentization relies on integrating AI and other emerging technologies into the joint force with the goal of gaining an edge on the United States. China argues that its governance model, including its military-civil fusion policy, gives Beijing a competitive advantage over Washington.”

The report cites a study of 343 Chinese military equipment contracts, broadly split into seven areas of interest for the regime’s military AI investments: intelligent and autonomous vehicles; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; predictive maintenance and logistics; information and electronic warfare; simulation and training; command and control; and automated target recognition.

The study is further evidence that the CCP is investing heavily in a broad array of new technologies, AI foremost among them. What is clear, the report says, is that military AI is central to the regime’s plans for global influence.

“[CCP leader] Xi [Jinping] has set ambitious goals for the [Chinese military] to ‘basically complete’ its modernization by 2035 and transform into a ‘world-class’ military by the middle of the century,” the report says.

“Both public and private actors within [China] view artificial intelligence as crucial to China’s future. For the party-state, AI’s importance goes beyond any contribution to military or political power, though those are, of course, important benefits. It regards AI... as critical to the country’s future in every respect.”

US Response Carries Risks

China’s communist regime is not alone in its push to integrate AI into evermore autonomous military technologies, however.

Speaking earlier this year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said he shared a similar vision, and believes that the world’s most powerful militaries will be primarily robotic in 10 to 15 years.

“Over the next 10 to 15 years, you’ll see large portions of advanced countries’ militaries become robotic,” Gen. Milley said during a March 31 discussion with Defense One. “If you add robotics with artificial intelligence and precision munitions and the ability to see at range, you’ve got the mix of a real fundamental change.

“That’s coming. Those changes, that technology … we are looking at inside of 10 years.”

To that end, the new report says that the United States’ push to integrate its own military AI and counter the CCP is not without risks. While individual technologies may prove beneficial on paper, the collective effect of many new military technologies could add an element of instability to the already fraught China-U.S. relationship.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the proliferation of AI-based military decision-making software.

“For any one state on its own, accelerating information processing could help buy additional time for humans to make more accurate and informed decisions,” the report says.

“The net effect, however, of multiple states compressing their decision timelines could be to accelerate the tempo of crises and provide leaders with less decision time overall.”

Likewise, the report warns, if American and Chinese leadership consider autonomous systems to pose less political risk in lethal military operations, they may be more likely to initiate force.

“If autonomy provides superior capability, political and military leaders may simply be more inclined to use force because they believe their chances of success on the battlefield are higher”

While the report urges Congress to “take bold action to constrain China’s progress in AI for military and repressive purposes,” it thus also encourages dialogue and international consensus building as a means of promoting stability and averting catastrophic misunderstanding.

“Make military AI a fundamental pillar of diplomacy with China related to nuclear weapons and strategic stability,” the report recommends.