Tag: AI

The security implications of China’s AI Strategy

Understanding China's AI Strategy by Gregory C. Allen

In the second half of 2018, I traveled to China on four separate trips to attend major diplomatic, military, and private-sector conferences focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI). During these trips, I participated in a series of meetings with high-ranking Chinese officials in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leaders of China’s military AI research organizations, government think tank experts, and corporate executives at Chinese AI companies. From these discussions – as well as my ongoing work analyzing China’s AI industry, policies, reports, and programs – I have arrived at a number of key judgments about Chinese leadership’s views, strategies, and prospects for AI as it applies to China’s economy and national security. Of course, China’s leadership in this area is a large population with diversity in its views, and any effort to generalize is inherently presumptuous and essentially guaranteed to oversimplify. However, the distance is large between prevailing views in American commentary on China’s AI efforts and what I have come to believe are the facts. I hope by stating my takeaways directly, this report will advance the assessment of this issue and be of benefit to the wider U.S. policymaking community.

Gregory C. Allen at the Center for a New American Security has produced a report with analysis and insights into China's AI strategy with national and cyber-security implications for the commercial, government, and military sectors.

Ruled By Computers

BUILT BY HUMANS. RULED BY COMPUTERS by Gabe Cherry

In 2014, a computer system called MiDAS plucked his file out of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency database and calculated, without any human review, that he had defrauded the unemployment system and owed the state of Michigan approximately $22,000 in restitution, penalties and interest – the result of a supposed $4,300 overpayment, plus Michigan’s customary 400 percent penalty and 12 percent interest. Then, still untouched by humans, MiDAS began to collect. It seized more than $10,000 from Russell by electronically intercepting his tax refunds in 2015 and 2016. He knew nothing about the fraud determination until his 2015 tax refund disappeared.

How do you beat something you can’t see? It’s like swinging in the dark. What are the laws that apply to a computer system? And what about us humans?
Brian Russell
Russell simply couldn’t afford the five-figure hit to his income. For the next two years, he made ends meet the best he knew how – he cancelled family trips, cut back on medical care for his diabetes, worked odd jobs. For a time, he lived in a friend’s basement.

While Russell struggled in the aftermath of the fraud determination, MiDAS kept rolling. An algorithm-based administration and fraud collection system implemented by the state of Michigan, it ran without human intervention for nearly two years between 2013 and 2015. During that time, it accused about 50,000 Michiganders of unemployment fraud. A 2017 review by the state found that more than 90 percent of those accusations were false.

Russell still doesn’t know why MiDAS accused him of fraud. He collected unemployment on and off a few years back when he was working as a journeyman electrician. Like generations of electricians before him, his union filed for unemployment on his behalf when he was between jobs. He can’t see the system, can’t touch it, can’t talk to it, can’t ask it why it has taken his money. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency hasn’t shared any information with him.

“How do you beat something you can’t see?” Russell said. “It’s like swinging in the dark. What are the laws that apply to a computer system? And what about us humans?”

Generally, these algorithms keep a low profile. But occasionally, they collide spectacularly with humans. That’s what happened to Russell.

BUILT BY HUMANS. RULED BY COMPUTERS by Gabe Cherry

In 2014, a computer system called MiDAS plucked his file out of the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency database and calculated, without any human review, that he had defrauded the unemployment system and owed the state of Michigan approximately $22,000 in restitution, penalties and interest – the result of a supposed $4,300 overpayment, plus Michigan’s customary 400 percent penalty and 12 percent interest. Then, still untouched by humans, MiDAS began to collect. It seized more than $10,000 from Russell by electronically intercepting his tax refunds in 2015 and 2016. He knew nothing about the fraud determination until his 2015 tax refund disappeared.

How do you beat something you can’t see? It’s like swinging in the dark. What are the laws that apply to a computer system? And what about us humans?
Brian Russell
Russell simply couldn’t afford the five-figure hit to his income. For the next two years, he made ends meet the best he knew how – he cancelled family trips, cut back on medical care for his diabetes, worked odd jobs. For a time, he lived in a friend’s basement.

While Russell struggled in the aftermath of the fraud determination, MiDAS kept rolling. An algorithm-based administration and fraud collection system implemented by the state of Michigan, it ran without human intervention for nearly two years between 2013 and 2015. During that time, it accused about 50,000 Michiganders of unemployment fraud. A 2017 review by the state found that more than 90 percent of those accusations were false.

Russell still doesn’t know why MiDAS accused him of fraud. He collected unemployment on and off a few years back when he was working as a journeyman electrician. Like generations of electricians before him, his union filed for unemployment on his behalf when he was between jobs. He can’t see the system, can’t touch it, can’t talk to it, can’t ask it why it has taken his money. The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency hasn’t shared any information with him.

“How do you beat something you can’t see?” Russell said. “It’s like swinging in the dark. What are the laws that apply to a computer system? And what about us humans?”

We admit that humans are flawed and make mistakes. But we also know when mistakes have been made and we can correct. I wonder if it's rational to be optimistic that flawed humans can design automated systems to find and correct for flaws in the system?

scorching fire

Former Head of Google China Foresees an AI Crisis—and Proposes a Solution by Eliza Strickland

His new book, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), is something of a bait and switch. The first half explores the diverging AI capabilities of China and the United States and frames the discussion as a battle for global dominance. Then, he boldly declares that we shouldn’t waste time worrying about who will win and says the “real AI crisis” will come from automation that wipes out whole job sectors, reshaping economies and societies in both nations.

 

“Lurking beneath this social and economic turmoil will be a psychological struggle,” he writes. “As more and more people see themselves displaced by machines, they will be forced to answer a far deeper question: In an age of intelligent machines, what does it mean to be human?”

 

In a wide-ranging Q&A with IEEE Spectrum, Lee not only explored this question further, he also gave his answer.

I think this ultimately means too many idle humans feeling worthless (worth + less). Too many humans in general. I'm not a religious person but I think the bible has some instructive words in Proverbs 16:27.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece

Or the American Standard Version:

A worthless man devises mischief; and in his lips there is a scorching fire.

I think that means war. Not with humans and machines. But with ourselves. And it will be a brutal war. We won't be worried about how many are killed because their lives will be deemeed inessential. All the useful work wil be done by machines.

Most people don’t think of their job just as a source of income. It brings meaning to their life, it’s their contribution to the world. That’s how we decided to structure our capitalistic society: There’s the idea that even by working routine jobs, they can make money and make better lives for their families. If we pull the rug out from under them and say, you have no job, but here’s some money from the government, I think that would lead to bad outcomes. Some would be happy and retire early. Some will learn a new skill and get a new job, but unfortunately many will learn the wrong job, and get displaced again. A large number of people will be depressed. They will feel that life has no meaning, and this can result in suicide, substance abuse, and so on.