Artificial intelligence is emerging as the most powerful platform for industry, society and national security. National concerns include important dimensions of economic, defence and infrastructure security.
The world is now focusing on AI at a scale and effort as never before. Even though AI was developed several decades ago, its evolution and growth into a powerful technology is triggering immense tussle over its control and management.
The tussle over AI is happening at three levels.
One is between global tech giants who want to make the most powerful platforms.
Two is between countries who want global dominance of the technology.
Three is by national governments and multilateral agencies like UN who want to regulate the growth of AI to preserve the interests of civil society and vulnerable communities
Microsoft and Google have been developing AI based tools in recent months. Both are competing to create and dominate the technology space with their AI solutions. Recently Microsoft partnered with Facebook’s parent company Meta for developing new levels of AI. “In recent months, the remarkable strides made in AI innovation have ignited a wave of transformative possibilities, captivating our collective imagination with the promise of reshaping industries and the way we work,” John Montgomery, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft said in a statement. “Meta and Microsoft announced support for the Llama 2 family of large language models (LLMs) on Azure and Windows. Llama 2 is designed to enable developers and organizations to build generative AI-powered tools and experiences. Meta and Microsoft share a commitment to democratizing AI and its benefits.” LLM are large data sets given to an algorithm to learn and interpret information.
A report in US publication Barrons highlights the various competing forces. Companies such as Meta Platforms and International Business Machines (IBM) are offering access to AI models that companies can use to create their own software.
“They hope they can win over customers from Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet. Meta’s new AI language model, named Llama 2, is being released as free open-source software, which means it can be used, modified, and shared. It will be available to companies for the first time via Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform as well as Amazon.com ’s Web Services and other providers,” the report says.
Similarly, IBM recently launched Watsonx—a platform allowing its clients to access a range of AI models trained for different tasks—in partnership with open-source AI start-up Hugging Face. Apple is now developing its own artificial intelligence project called “Apple GPT”, which could rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
At the second level, countries like US and China are competing to ensure that their companies achieve global dominance. China has also developed its generative AI models to ensure that US is not ahead of it. AI can be used for cyber security, healthcare, defence and nearly every sector. Since AI does not have borders, there are fears among countries that their rivals will use AI to attack them or undermine their business interests.
China has been accused of cyberattacks in the US and Europe. It has also been accused of stealing intellectual property of western companies. The western world is fearful of China’s technological prowess and wants to counter it with its own efforts. China is investing billions of dollars in AI and robotics. While in the US and Europe smart manufacturing using AI and automation has not kept pace.
Tech leaders and AI experts have warned that the US military needs to move quickly to harness its military data and invest in emerging technology if it wants to compete with the Chinese in an era when artificial intelligence is upending global conflict. These experts told US lawmakers on a House Armed Services subcommittee that China is spending three times more than the US on developing AI tools. They said that the Chinese Communist Party deeply understands the potential for AI to disrupt warfare, and is investing heavily to capitalize on it. Recently, US put restrictions on export of semiconductor components to China in an effort to restrict its growth.
The third level is at multilateral agencies like the UN. “The malicious use of AI systems for terrorist, criminal or state purposes could cause horrific levels of deaths and destruction, widespread trauma and deep psychological damage on an unimaginable scale,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned. “Generative AI has enormous potential for good and evil at scale. Its creators themselves have warned that much bigger, potentially catastrophic and existential risks lie ahead. Without action to address these risks, we are derelict in our responsibilities to present and future generations.”
To prevent clashes between countries and companies the UN wants to set up a global body to regulate AI and also ensure that it is used for public good. This could be similar to the various global convention on arms, aviation and use of chemical weapons.
By 2026, the UN should develop a legally binding agreement banning the use of AI in completely automated weapons of war, Guterres said. He also pledged to bring together an advisory council that will develop proposals for regulating AI more broadly by the end of the year, and teased a forthcoming policy brief with recommendations for governments on how to approach the technology responsibly.
In India the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has called for an independent body too oversee the growth of AI. India will also want to ensure that it is able to set its own rules and guidelines to ensure that its interests are protected.
As the power of AI rises, it will be increasingly challenging for global companies and governments to control and regulate it. But it is critical that global leaders come together to harness this power technology for growth & development and not for conflict & destruction.
Pranjal Sharma is a geo-economic analyst and author of The Next New: Navigating the Fifth Industrial Revolution.