In early February, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by directing federal agencies to devote resources to AI research.
Days later, the Pentagon unveiled an AI strategy to counter threats posed by China and Russia.
The Chinese regime has been developing AI at full speed. As Beijing aggressively develops AI technology for military and surveillance use, experts in U.S. government and think tanks are warning about China’s potential to narrow the United States’ lead in AI development.
In an October 2018 article published in Foreign Affairs magazine, policy analyst Michael Auslin noted that while the United States maintains a slight advantage in the AI arms race, a lack of investment in related fields may place Washington at a disadvantage in future research compared to China.
In January, Elsevier, a global technology and medical-information analytics company, released an analysis report on AI research around the world, noting that China is attracting more AI talent and is “on track to establish a leading position in AI research.”
Big Data: Beijing’s Advantages
In fact, as early as July 2017, China’s State Council, a cabinet-like department of the central government, announced a detailed strategy delineating China’s desire to become a “world leader” in AI by 2030.
Li Kaifu, a Taiwan-born angel investor and former president of Google China, gave a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November 2017, in which he explained how the Chinese regime has an advantage over the United States in developing AI.
The Chinese regime has the power to manipulate domestic markets and has a budget not made public to the country’s taxpayers—giving Beijing unbridled access to funding.
In addition, in the West, people value privacy and data protection. But in mainland China, the Chinese regime has appeased citizens through spreading the propaganda that technological advances are for the purpose of “national rejuvenation.”
A key step in AI development is the testing and training of AI algorithms. This requires a massive trove of data. In free societies, the ethics of data access is a major bottleneck in AI development. But the Chinese regime doesn’t have any qualms about accessing citizens’ data.
Concrete examples abound. Dr. Xu Li, the founder of SenseTime (also called Shangtang Technology), a Chinese AI startup that specializes in image recognition, told Bloomberg in an August 2017 article that his company used large amounts of video data from police in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to develop its video analysis software. He added that most of China’s large cities have set up artificial intelligence research institutes so they can share data with each other.
“In China, the population is huge, so it’s much easier to collect the data for whatever use-scenarios you need,” he said. “When we talk about data resources, really the largest data source is the government.”
By contrast, in 2015, Google’s artificial intelligence lab DeepMind signed a deal with the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust to obtain some 1.6 million case records from the UK’s National Health Service, as source data for a diagnostic app. But in July 2017, the UK government’s data protection watchdog determined that the deal violated UK data-protection regulations.
