SUNDAY March 28, 2021
COVER STORY Page 2
Media casts AI like it has agency. We should be thinking about our role — Dr Ingvild Bode
152 extreme weather events have taken place in Pakistan from 1999 to 2018
HISTORY & HERITAGE
LAW & JUSTICE
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Page 8
Believe me, people still believe in the post office — Abul Tahir
Courts must excercise their jurisdiction sparingly in election matters — Waqar Rana
Story by: Zeeshan Ahmad
A look into how the race for smarter AI is triggering and impacting great power ccompetition between China and the US, and the eethical and security considerations that must be aat the fore for those involved in its pursuit
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hink of artificial intelligence and chances are you would find yourself in one of two camps. The popular notion that pervades our collective imagination is that of a malicious machine, humanoid or otherwise, hell-bent on eradicating humanity for one reason or another. On the flip side of the coin, there are those who perhaps take the concept too lightly, deeming it nothing more than new-fangled techno-gimmickry. But the field has the potential to alter all facets of life as we know it at a deeply fundamental level, much in the same vein as industrialisation and more recently, the internet did. Indeed, to some extent we may already be reaping the results of AI without ever stopping to ponder the when, where and how. Like when you run a search on Google or play around with filters on your social media app of choice. Any technology that holds the potential for such fundamental shifts also brings with a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. Particularly in the realm of security and dominance, it could alter the very fates of nations, creating new powers and sometimes toppling old ones. Perhaps for this very reason Russia’s President Vladimir Putin sounded a warning a few years back: whichever country leads the way when it comes to AI will rule the world. More recently, the United States sounded its own alarm, signalling what could be seen as a formal step towards an AI arms race. At the start of this month, its National Security Commission on AI (NCSAI) issued a 756-page report suggesting that China could soon replace the US as the world leader when it comes to the technology. That shift, the report stated, holds significant ramifications for the US security and political interests, it warned. “Americans have not yet grappled with just how profoundly the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution will impact our economy, national security, and welfare,” the commissioned stated. “NCSAI is delivering an uncomfortable message: America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era.”
‘A moving target’ In some ways, AI is a nebulous concept, the exact definition of which has varied across the decades. In a 2019 paper exploring the notion of the AI arms race, Dr Peter Asaro pointed out when the term was coined in the 1950s, it was used to describe the work of a varied group of researchers who were
developing computer programs to perform tasks believed then to require human intelligence. “Over time, this proved to be something of a moving target; as computers regularly achieved new performances, the scope of what requires human intelligence has shifted.” In recent times, the term has come to be associated with an entire set of automated technologies, along with certain computer techniques and principles that have been around for decades. The revolutionary aspect towards these comes from advances in computation, miniaturisation and economies of scale, which have made it much more cheaper and effective to employ these.
A key moment for Chinese military thinking was when an AI beat a top player at Go using moves that no human had conceived of, despite 2,500 years of humans playing the game Dr Peter Singer On the other hand, science fiction and popular culture have also reinforced of a ‘super intelligence’, or an ‘intelligent’ computer system which exceeds human capability in a broad array of domains. Highlighting the impact AI could have on security and life in general, the NCSAI report stated no comfortable historical reference captures it. “AI is not a single technology breakthrough, like a bat-wing stealth bomber. The race for AI supremacy is not like the space race to the moon,” it said. “However, what Thomas Edison said of electricity encapsulates the AI future: ‘It is a field of fields ... it holds the secrets which will reorganize the life of the world’.” The report termed AI an ‘inspiring technology’. “The rapidly improving ability of computer systems to solve problems and to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence — and in some instances exceed human performance — is world altering,” it stated. “Scientists have already made astonishing progress in fields ranging from biology and medicine to astrophysics by leveraging AI.” It added that AI technologies will be a source of enor-
mous power for the companies and countries that harness them. “It will be the most powerful tool in generations for benefiting humanity.”
arms race, that is the weaponising of AI for conventional warfare using automated systems like drones and air defence systems.
The AI arms race
A new great power competition
The NCSAI report issued a chilling warning about the potential dark side of emerging AI technologies. “AI systems will also be used in the pursuit of power… AI tools will be weapons of first resort in future conflicts,” it acknowledged. “Adversaries are already using AI-enabled disinformation attacks to sow division in democracies and jar our sense of reality. States, criminals, and terrorists will conduct AI-powered cyber attacks and pair AI software with commercially available drones to create ‘smart weapons’.” “For the first time since World War II, America’s technological predominance is under threat. China possesses the might, talent, and ambition to surpass the United States as the world’s leader in AI in the next decade if current trends do not change,” it added. Dr Asaro in his paper, noted that the notion of the AI arms race is publically understood along five angles: economic, cultural, cyber, social and military. “The idea that there is a race to develop the most capable AI and to translate this into economic dominance by capturing markets, users, data, and customers is probably the most salient interpretation of the phrase,” he wrote. “Another way to view the AI arms race is as the space race of our generation… insofar as the AI arms race is a cultural battle to convince the world which country has the greatest technical prowess, and … holds the keys to the technological (and economic) future…” Another view he discussed is of AI weapons as ‘cyberweapons’. “Accordingly, the main strategic advantage to be sought for in AI developments will be in the cyber domain. As … cyberattacks become increasingly intelligent by utilising AI, it should become increasingly capable of … greater effects. Similarly, the best cybersecurity defenses against these cyberattacks will also depend more and more on AI.” The social aspect of the AI arms builds on the idea of cyberwarfare, he pointed out. “Related to the idea of applying AI to cyberwarfare is to apply AI to information warfare and propaganda. [And] just as AI could be applied to the human engineering side of cyber operations, it could also be used to shape public understanding and political action more generally. Finally, there is the literal interpretation of the AI
Speaking to The Express Tribune, political scientist and 21st century warfare expert Dr Peter W Singer said that while the ‘killer robot’ narrative gets most popular attention, AI applications go well beyond robotics. “For instance a key moment for Chinese military thinking was when an AI beat a top human at the strategy game of Go,” he explained. “It was not merely that it beat a human, but that it did so using moves and strategy that no human had conceived of, despite the 2,500 years of humans playing the game. For the People’s Liberation Army, this was a sign that the future of war would be shaped not only by information but ‘intelligentisation’.”
What Edison said of electricity encapsulates AI: It holds secrets which will reorganise the world NCSAI report For Dr Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, AI opens up new approaches to warfare that are radically different to traditional approaches. “This applies not only in kinetic operations, but in ‘grey zone’ operations such as disinformation and deception using social media,” he said. “In addition, AI allows an actor to rapidly understand a fast-moving environment more rapidly than humans can – a ‘machine speed’ approach if harnessed by the Chinese, against a US that lacks such a capability, would give China a decisive edge.” Dr Singer clarified that the report didn’t say that the US was now lagging behind, but that it was at risk of doing so. “China has made an immense investment in the field and been very open about its plan, as Xi expressed, to be the world leader in it by 2030. The US report was meant as a warning to US policymakers that this goal of Beijing could happen if it doesn’t invest similarly.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2