“KINDERGARTEN LEVEL”: EX-PENTAGON CHIEF SAYS US HAS LOST AI RACE WITH CHINA

Mon 11 October 2021:

According to the former chief software officer of the Pentagon, China has a competitive edge over the US in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years,” Nicolas Chaillan said in an interview with London-based business newspaper, Financial Times.

He called the current situation “a done deal,” adding that, in his opinion, the race between China and the US was “already over.”

According to the Financial Times, Chaillan projected that China will achieve global dominance as a result of its advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cyber capabilities.

He attacked the US government’s cyber defense capabilities, calling them “kindergarten level” in several departments.

In his first interview since stepping down as the Pentagon’s first-ever software chief, Chaillan made the remarks.

Chaillan blamed the reluctance of Goggle to work with the US defence department on AI. Chinese companies, on the other hand, are obliged to work with Beijing, and were making “massive investment” into AI without regard to ethics, he said to Financial Times.

In protest of the US government’s slow pace of technical progress, particularly in the military, he recently resigned.

The United States Innovation and Competition Act was approved by the US Senate in June to enhance semiconductor production, artificial intelligence development, and other technology in the United States.

The $250 billion (€216 billion) investment, which would be invested over the next five years, was largely viewed as much-needed funding in the struggle against China for technological innovation.

After the bill passed, US President Joe Biden said: “We are in a competition to win the 21st century, and the starting gun has gone off.”

China’s National People’s Congress foreign affairs committee said in a statement that the bill “smears China’s development” and “interferes in China’s internal affairs under the banner of innovation and competition.”

In mid-September, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stressed the urgent need for a moratorium on the sale and use of AI systems.

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AI was also on the agenda at the inaugural meeting of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) meeting of US and EU officials.

The director of the US government’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in early October said that AI architecture and networks “are weapons” that need to be treated as such.

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He explained that there are a number of new threats that come with adversarial, such as data poisoning, spoofing and deep fakes.

He said that as AI technology develops and grows, it will increasingly become a target of cyberattacks and that security of these networks is crucial.

(with agencies)

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