A recent report released by the National Security Council on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense be fully “artificial intelligence (AI) ready” by 2025 to avoid being overtaken by China. Pentagon officials said Friday (April 9) that they generally agree with the report’s recommendations and are implementing more than half of them.
Lt. Gen. Michael S. Groen, director of the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) and Marine Corps, and Robert O. Work, vice chairman of NSCAI and former deputy secretary of defense, held a press conference at the Pentagon on Friday. Work introduced the key NSCAI report to Congress this March, calling it an early warning of U.S. defense capabilities.
Technology dominance underpins U.S. economic and military competitiveness,” Walker said. For the first time since World War II, this dominance is under serious threat from the People’s Republic of China.”
He emphasized, “The single most important technology that the United States must master in this technological competition is artificial intelligence and all of its related technologies.”
“But we are not yet organized to win this race, and we don’t have a strategy to win the competition. And even if we had a strategy, we don’t have the resources to implement it.” Walker said, “We need to get organized …… By 2025, the Department of Defense and the entire federal government should lay the groundwork for broad integration of AI.
The National Security Council on Artificial Intelligence is an independent council established under the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 to “examine the methods and means needed to advance artificial intelligence, machine learning and related technologies to comprehensively address the national security and defense needs of the United States” and to provide the president and U.S. Congress with recommendations.
In its report, this commission recommended that 3.4 percent of the U.S. Department of Defense’s annual budget be devoted to science and technology and that at least $8 billion be allocated to core AI research and development.
The committee’s vice chairman, Walker, recommended that DoD establish an “AI-ready” performance goal by the end of the current fiscal year (2021), with a final deadline of 2025 to achieve this goal.
Groen, director of the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the Pentagon’s current AI program is focused on creating an “enterprise of capacities. Groen emphasized that U.S. defense AI development is heavily focused on the consolidation of ethical guiding principles. He also echoed Walker’s concerns about the development of Chinese AI capabilities.
Walker said, “Our assessment actually concludes that China is slightly better than the U.S. at deploying AI applications at scale. We can catch up with them. …… The Defense Department must increase its science and technology spending on AI and all research and development.
This requires top-down leadership in the Pentagon, he said: “You have to have people at the top who say this (AI capability readiness) is the orientation and you have to follow the orientation. If you don’t follow it, you’re going to be penalized. If you follow it, you’ll get more resources.”
Walker said, “We’re competing with dictatorships. Dictatorial regimes use technology in a way that reflects their governing principles. We already know how China wants to use artificial intelligence – they want to use it to spy on the population, they want to use it to suppress minorities, they want to use it to reduce personal privacy and trample on civil liberties. That’s not going to work for a democracy like the United States. So it’s as much a competition of values as it is a competition of technology.” He said.
Walker said China currently has a power gap with the United States: “They want to be the world leader in artificial intelligence technology by 2030. By saying that, they recognize that they’re not the world leader in AI right now, and they think it’s going to take them about 10, eight years to surpass the U.S.”
“That’s why we say we better be fully competitive by 2025, and if we don’t, the U.S. will run the risk of being overtaken by China.”
He said the U.S. AI development currently has three major advantages: talent, hardware and algorithms, “but the Chinese are working hard, and we think they can catch us in five to 10 years.”
China’s strengths, he argued, lie in the vast amount of data it has, the few restrictions on data privacy, and a national strategy of integrating the application of AI and huge national investment.
For his part, Groen said, “Our best opportunity is in American innovation. Ideas from academia and smaller companies in AI continue to emerge. The number of AI companies is growing rapidly.”
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