Despite the imminent transition of power in the United States, the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on the Chinese Communist regime are undiminished. The White House1 recently announced the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office to address the challenge of China’s AI prowess, while also requiring that the ethical aspects of AI development and application in the United States take a different path from that of the Chinese Communist Party.
The White House’s announcement of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office is another initiative by the Trump administration to ensure U.S. leadership in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and to coordinate government-private sector collaboration, according to a Voice of America 15 report.
The plan will allow the U.S. to increase its investment in responding to the rise of China’s AI power, while also requiring that the ethical aspects of AI development and application in the U.S. take a different path than those of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Office of Artificial Intelligence Initiative falls under the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Lynn Parker, deputy chief technology officer of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, became the first director of the Office of Artificial Intelligence Initiative.
Michael Kratsios, the White House chief technology officer who leads the department, said in a 12-day statement that the Office of Artificial Intelligence Initiatives, which will be an integral part of the federal government’s AI efforts for years to come, serves as a central hub for national AI research and policy across the U.S. innovation ecosystem.
Under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021, passed by Congress in December 2020, the section on the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 identifies $6.4 billion to be allocated by the U.S. government over the next five years for research on AI and its applications.
In terms of military R&D on AI, the Pentagon’s Directorate of Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) will see its AI R&D budget increase to $459 million; the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) will also see its budget increase to $290 million.
Tony Samp, a policy advisor at DLA Piper and an associate senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Voice of America that U.S. government agencies need to do everything they can to leverage every dollar they invest in artificial intelligence.
When a single city in Communist China can invest billions of dollars in AI research, the U.S. may not want to compete with them or other countries in terms of spending on AI, he said. The congressionally mandated White House Office of National AI Initiative will play a key role in coordinating federal funding for AI research and development.
Developing trustworthy AI is one of the priorities of the U.S. AI Initiative, the report said. The Chinese Communist Party has been criticized by Western countries for allegedly violating human rights norms in the development of AI. Some experts believe that the U.S. needs to revisit its overall strategy and invest more in AI research to maintain its initiative and deal with the CCP’s challenges in the AI field.
U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) issued a joint statement last December saying the AI Initiative Act sends a signal to U.S. allies and adversaries that the United States will continue to be a leader in developing and adopting trustworthy AI global leader in the development and adoption of trusted AI.
In February of the same year, Parker, the first director of the U.S. Office of National AI Initiative, represented the United States at a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, to negotiate with Western nations on how to counter Communist China’s standards and norm-setting in the field of AI.
Parker told the media at the time, “We will never apologize for wanting to use technology in a way that is consistent with our values.” The West, united, can come up with a rebuttal to what the Chinese Communist Party is doing now.
The development of artificial intelligence has evolved in the real world into an AI tech war with the future of humanity at stake.
The Chinese Communist Party has been laying out its plans for AI for years. Since the launch of the “Made in China 2025” strategy in 2015, AI has been the focus of the CCP’s development. In 2017, the CCP has proposed to dominate the world in the field of AI by 2030.
Using AI technology, the CCP has not only established a vast “skynet project” to monitor the public, but is also pushing AI to export hegemony and dominate the world.
As early as October 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce already sanctioned 20 Chinese Communist Party public security units, as well as eight security or AI companies involved in video surveillance, voice recognition, and image recognition, including Hikvision, Dahua, KDDI (iFlytek), Megvii, Shangtang (SenseTime), Yitu, MPC, and Yixin Technology.
The Commerce Department’s rationale for sanctioning 20 Chinese companies is that it “cannot and will not tolerate the brutal repression of ethnic minorities in China.
In fact, the CCP uses AI to persecute far more than just the ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and other places; every Chinese, including the Han Chinese population, is a target of CCP persecution and a victim of CCP AI technology.
The Chinese Communist Party’s use of AI to violate human rights has been criticized by many Western countries, led by the United States. The U.S. formed the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) last June with the Group of Seven (G7), as well as Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Mexico, India, Slovenia and the European Union.
In a joint statement, the alliance’s sponsors said they would “support the responsible and human-centered development and use of artificial intelligence in a manner consistent with human rights, fundamental freedoms and our shared democratic values.
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