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November 2, 2021 — No Comments

The United States’ Race for Supremacy in Artificial Intelligence

By: Zrinka Boric

“Where we choose to invest speaks to what we value as a Nation. This year’s Budget, the first of my Presidency, is a statement of values that define our Nation at its best.” - Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (The Budget Message of the President)

This article navigates the landscape of AI policymaking and tracks efforts of the United States to promote and govern AI technologies. 

Technological advancement has become a new approach to increase a state’s political, military, and economic strength. The Cold War and the arms race between the two then strongest nations in the world, the United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR), revealed the potential that lay in the development of technology. Today, the United States is again at the forefront in the race for supremacy in the potentially world-changing technology: artificial intelligence (AI). 

Artificial intelligence has the potential to fundamentally change strategy, organization, priorities, and resources of any national community that manages to develop AI technology, lead to further innovation, and eventually apply it. Artificial intelligence is going through major evolution and development, and its potential is increasing at a speed rate. Progress is visibly accelerating, and our social, political, and economic systems will be affected greatly. One of the important questions is how to define and approach all the opportunities AI technology can offer while avoiding or managing risks. 

The American AI Initiative

The United States is characterized by a skilled workforce, innovative private sector, good data availability, and effective governance which are all key factors for the government’s ability to enable effective development and adoption of AI. 

The United States published its national AI strategy, the American AI Initiative, in 2019.The responsible organization is the White House, and its priority is to increase the federal government investment in AI’s Research and Development (R&D), and to ensure technical standards for safe AI technology development and deployment. American AI Initiative expresses a commitment to collaborate with foreign partners while promoting U.S leadership in AI. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the American AI Initiative is not particularly comprehensive, especially when compared to other leading nations, and is characterized by the lack of both funding and palpable policy objectives.

In 2019, the U.S. policymakers were advised to advance the American AI Initiative with concrete goals and clear policies aimed at advancing AI – such as spurring public sector AI adoption and allocating new funding for AI R&D, rather than simply repurposing existing funds.

AI in the USA Budget for FY2022 

President Biden's budget for FY2022 includes approximately $171.3 billion for research and development (R&D), which is an 8.5% ($13.5 billion) increase compared to the FY2021 estimated level of $157.8 billion. 

According to the 2021 AI Index Report, in FY 2020 the USA federal departments and agencies spent a combined $1.8 billion on unclassified AI-related contracts. This represents an increase of more than 25% from the amount spent in FY 2019. 

One of the agencies with the major R&D program is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). President Biden is requesting $1,497.2 million for NIST in FY2022, an increase of $462.7 million (44.7%) from the FY2021 $1,034.5 million. The second-highest program budget increase in NIST is for Partnerships, Research, and Standards to Advance Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, $45.4 million (an increase of $15 million compared to FY2021). 

Some departments are expecting large percentage increases in R&D funding, among which the Department of Commerce, with an increase of up to 29.3%. At the same time, it is interesting to note that one of DOC’s latest projects is the creation of the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisory Committee (NAIAC), which will be discussed below.

Numerous policymakers in Congress are particularly interested in the Department of Defense Science and Technology (DOD S&T) program funding. The increasingly popular belief in the defense community finds ensuring support for S&T activities as necessary to maintain USA’s military superiority in the world.

The budget request represents President Biden’s R&D priorities, and the Congress may agree with it partially, completely, or not agree at all. It is safe to say that AI has gained the attention of the Congress, considering the 116th Congress (January 3, 2019 - January 3, 2021) is the most AI-focused congressional session in history with the number of times AI was mentioned being more than three times higher compared to 115th Congress (115th - 149, 116th - 486).

National and International Efforts

As indicated in its national AI strategy, the United States takes part in various intergovernmental AI initiatives, such asGlobal Partnership on AI (GPAI), OECD Network of Experts on AI (ONE AI), Ad Hoc Expert Group (AHED) for the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and has participated in global summits and meetings, such as AI Partnership for Defense, and AI for Good Global Summit. In addition, the United States announced a declaration of the bilateral agreement on AI with the United Kingdom in December 2020. 

On September 8, 2021, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisory Committee (NAIAC). The main purpose of the NAIAC will be to advise the President and the National AI Initiative Office (NAIIO) on issues related to AI. “AI presents an enormous opportunity to tackle the biggest issues of our time, strengthen our technological competitiveness, and be an engine for growth in nearly every sector of the economy. But we must be thoughtful, creative, and wise in how we address the challenges that accompany these new technologies,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

The United States or China? 

The United States is showing an increasing interest in developing and implementing artificial intelligence through the increase in federal AI-related budget, establishment of new committees, intergovernmental AI initiatives, bilateral agreements, and participating in global summits but the constant comparison is being made between USA and China. Should the future battle over artificial intelligence be between USA and China, the question arises: Who will win this battle for AI supremacy?

Recently, a former Pentagon expert said that the race is already over, and China has won. The Pentagon’s first chief software officer resigned over the slow pace of technological advances in the U.S. military. He claims the USA has no competing fighting chance against China in the upcoming years and that it's already a done deal.

At the same time, an expert in artificial intelligence Kai-Fu Lee, former President of Google China, disagrees with this claim. He notes that the US has a clear academic lead in artificial intelligence, supports his claim by noting that all 16 Turing award recipients in AI are American or Canadian, and the top 1% of papers published are still predominantly American. China is simply faster in commercializing technologies and has more data. 

Artificial intelligence already has numerous uses (academic, military, medical, etc.) and when assessing countries' AI technology reach it is important to separate different uses of technology. 

To answer the question on whether the United States or China will win AI 'race' or whether a new force will emerge, it is necessary to closely monitor artificial intelligence technology development and compare different countries using a uniform set of criteria before reaching a conclusion. Another potential scenario, as highlighted by Kai-Fu Lee in his book AI 2014: Ten Visions of Our Future, states the possibility of United States and China co-leading the world in technology.

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June 14, 2021 — No Comments

The disruptive power of Artificial Intelligence

By: Renata Safina and Arnaud Sobrero

The use of artificial intelligence may change how war is conducted

In 2020, amidst the biggest pandemic the world has seen since the Spanish Flu in 1918, two ex-soviet states were battling over an area of just 4,400 km² in the mountainous region of Nagorno- Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan, so close and yet so far, are two mortal enemies sharing a common DNA.    

This war, at first, seemed like a faraway regional conflict between two neighboring states, away from western Europe and even further from the United States. However, a closer inspection requires us to pay a lot more attention to the conflict. Indeed, this conflict is illustrative of how the extensive use of artificial intelligence-enabled drones can be instrumental in shifting the outcome of a war. Thus, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the military domain is disrupting the way we approach conventional warfare.

AI means

The use of advanced technological weapons, drones, and loitering munitions supplied by both Israel and Turkey practically won this war for Azerbaijan. In particular, AI-enabled weaponized drones with increasingly autonomous and surveillance capabilities were able to disrupt the battlefield significantly. The deployment of those drones, such as the Turkish TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), had a substantial disruptive impact on the battlefield as the Azeris forces were able to destroy 47% of the Armenian combat vehicles and 93% of its artillery.    

'Harpy' and 'Harop' loitering munitions (LM) are autonomous weapon systems produced by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a state-owned aerospace and aviation manufacturer. A loitering munition or 'kamikaze drone' is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a built-in warhead tarrying around an area searching for targets. Once the target is located, the LM strikes the target detonating on impact. The significant advantage of these systems is that during loitering, the attacker can decide when and what to strike. Should the target not be found, the LM returns to the base. In addition, these systems are equipped with machine learning algorithms that can take decisions without human involvement, allowing them to process a large amount of data and decide instantly, revolutionizing the speed and accuracy of the actions.  

Conducting Warfare through AI – Ethical Implications

Those developments in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence are already contributing to creating technological surrogates disrupting how we conduct warfare. 

Wars fought with lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) equipped with AI are not a vision of a distant future. These weapons are being deployed presently and are a huge game changer and, those 'market disruptors' will once and for all change the way the wars are fought. Former CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus claims that “drones, unmanned ships, tanks, subs, robots, computers are going to transform how we fight all campaigns. Over time, the man in the loop may be in developing the algorithm, not the operation of the unmanned system itself.”

However, military operations conducted without human involvement raise many ethical questions and debates. On one side, supporters argue that LAWS with AI generate fewer casualties due to high precision, and thanks to lack of emotions, can even eliminate war crimes. On the other side, machine learning bias in data input may create unpredictable mistakes. AI decision-making may result in flash wars and rapid escalation of conflicts with catastrophic consequences. Thus, by lowering the cost of war, LAWS might increase the likelihood of conflicts. 

Furthermore, the transfer of the responsibility of decision-making entirely to the machine will drastically distance a human from an act of killing, questioning the morality and ethics of the application of AI for military purposes. Lack of international laws and regulations created a Wild West with developed countries acting as both sheriffs and outlaws. Vigorous debates are already taking place among academics and military organizations in the western world as they are trying to keep up with the increasing technological developments. The resulting discussions triggered the creation of a group of governmental experts on LAWS at the United Nations in 2016. Despite ongoing United Nations discussions, international ban or other regulations on military AI are not likely to happen in the near term. Consequently, before we can fully grasp the consequences of applying artificial intelligence in the military domain and start creating "killer robots'', a more cautious approach should be recommended to limit the deployment of AI systems to less-lethal operations such as bomb disposal, mine clearance and reconnaissance missions.

For all the potential applications of AI to the military domain, the question stays: Will it help us sleep better at night or prevent us from sleeping at all?

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