News — At The Edge — 2/24

We are fast approaching the event horizon of artificial intelligence blackhole — global AI arms-race, malicious use of AIs and need for AIs to explain themselves — and a civilizational black swan event looms large.

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How does Chinese tech stack up against American tech? —

“[Americans] often reassure themselves [while]…the roads, airports and schools continue to slide, it will retain its lead in the most sophisticated fields for decades…[after] ceded the top spot to China in exports in 2007…manufacturing in 2011, and…absolute GDP by about 2030….

American attitudes towards Chinese tech have passed through several stages of denial….[Now] American tech’s age of ‘imperial arrogance’ is ending….

• Alibaba and Tencent, are in the same league as Alphabet and Facebook….
• China’s e-commerce sales are double America’s…
• Chinese send 11 times more money by mobile phones…
• [The] government decreed that China would lead globally in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030….

[U.S.] tech firms support 7m jobs at home that pay twice the average wage. Other industries benefit by using technology more actively and becoming more productive: American non-tech firms are 50% more ‘digitised’ than European ones….And the $180bn of foreign profits that American tech firms mint annually is a boon several times greater than the benefit of having the world’s reserve currency….

[China’s] tech industry is 42% as powerful as America’s. But…2012 the figure was just 15%…[with] a rich ecosystem of VC firms [and]…government-backed funds-of-funds….

[Also] number of cited AI papers by Chinese scientists is already at 89% of [U.S]…[with] piles of data and notable companies in AI specialisms…. At the present pace China’s tech industry will be at parity with America’s in 10–15 years….

But the real prize is making far more profits overseas and setting global standards…[making] some countries nervous about relying on Chinese tech firms…. For Silicon Valley, it is time to get paranoid.” https://www.economist.com/news/business/21737075-silicon-valley-may-not-hold-its-global-superiority-much-longer-how-does-chinese-tech

For Superpowers, Artificial Intelligence Fuels New Global Arms Race

“[Speech by] Putin ‘Artificial intelligence is the future…for all humankind…. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world’….

[It’s] sign of an intensifying race among Russia, China, and the US to accumulate military power based on [AI]…vital to the future of their national security…[and] ‘power in the future’…[and] could shake up armed conflict as significantly as nuclear weapons did….

• [China’s] strategy designed to make the country ‘the front-runner and global innovation center in AI’ by 2030….
• [Pentagon] strategy known as the ‘Third Offset,’ intended to give the US…weapons powered by smart software…[and] established the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team to improve use of AI technologies…
• [Russia’s] Military Industrial Committee has set a target of making 30 percent of military equipment robotic by 2025….Russian drones are much cheaper, and have smaller ranges, than…US, but have been extremely effective….

[Russia] may be willing to use machine learning and AI more aggressively than its rivals in intelligence and propaganda campaigns…[and] enhance the power of hacking and social-media campaigns like those deployed in the 2016 US election.” https://www.wired.com/story/for-superpowers-artificial-intelligence-fuels-new-global-arms-race/?mbid=BottomRelatedStories

Our Twilight Zone & What Comes Next *

AI ripe for exploitation, experts warn —

“The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence report warns…AI is ripe for exploitation by rogue states, criminals and terrorists….

[Governments] and technical researchers to work together to understand and prepare for the malicious use of AI…[recognizing] it is a dual-use technology…[in] areas of AI…available now or likely…within five years…[especially] area of reinforcement learning where AIs are trained to superhuman levels of intelligence without human examples or guidance….

[AIs] could be used by hackers to find patterns in data and new exploits in code… buy a drone and train it with facial recognition software to target a certain individual. Bots could be automated or ‘fake’ lifelike videos for political manipulation. Hackers could use speech synthesis to impersonate targets….

AI will alter the…risk for citizens, organizations and states — whether it’s criminals training machines to hack or ‘phish’ at human levels of performance or privacy-eliminating surveillance, profiling and repression — the full range of impacts on security is vast….

[Often] AI systems don’t merely reach human levels of performance but significantly surpass it….[Must] consider the implications of superhuman hacking, surveillance, persuasion, and physical target identification….[W]e need to take ownership of the problems — because the risks are real….

[Need] to design software and hardware to make it less hackable — and…laws and international regulations might work in tandem with this’…[for] three areas — digital, physical and political — in which the malicious use of AI is most likely to be exploited.” http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43127533

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Community Is Playing A Risky Game With Us

For artificial intelligence to thrive, it must explain itself —

“The invention of deep learning…[using] programs called neural networks to churn through large volumes of data looking for and remembering patterns…[have] many worry that even today’s ‘AI-lite’ has the capacity to morph into a monster…that is incomprehensible…[as to] exactly how it is doing what it does….

[If] AI agents could somehow explain why they did what they did, trust would increase and [AI]…would become more useful….

America’s spy agencies…are already overwhelmed by…pattern-recognition software pressing them to examine certain pieces of information. As AI adds to that deluge, it is more important than ever that computer programs…explain why they are calling something to a human operator’s attention….

[Various] ways of opening the black box of AI…can go only as far as a human being can, since they are, in essence, aping human explanations….[But] state of someone’s health are far harder for a human being to analyze and describe. AI already outperforms people at such tasks, so human explanations are not available to act as models….

Some engineers…are turning to techniques, such as cognitive psychology, that human beings use to understand their own minds….[Others] think this whole approach wrongheaded….

[The] decisions made by AI which are hardest to scrutinize are necessarily the most complex and thus likely to be the most useful…[because] people tend to construct reasons for their behavior which align with information mutually available to speaker and listener, and with their own interests, rather than describing accurately how their thoughts led to a decision….

[So] autonomous machine…explanations are forged by and for human beings….[T]his may change…if AI is developed…like the fictional variety…to have motives of its own…[and] ascribing legal personhood to AI will then be necessary if those harmed by such advanced agents are to seek compensation and justice….

[If] machine minds…cannot explain themselves, or whose detailed operation is beyond…human language…[is] a problem for criminal law….’[The] third party breaking the chain of causation that is not a human being… is really new’…[so] a decision cannot be subject to cross-examination…[meaning] the guilt or innocence of a human being associated with that decision may be impossible….

[We’re] a few years from…a case involving a driverless car might come before the courts. A case of social bias, however, is eminently conceivable even now.” https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21737018-if-it-cannot-who-will-trust-it-artificial-intelligence-thrive-it-must

Find more of my ideas on Medium at, A Passion to Evolve.Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed.Prefer a weekly email newsletter — no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me dochuston1@gmail.com with“add me” in the subject line.May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 2/24 was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.