China catching up with US on AI, may nationalize development, Harvard report warns
Artificial intelligence could greatly strengthen Chinese internet and information censorship, report warns
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Artificial intelligence programs in authoritarian countries are catching up to development in the U.S., a new report claims.
The report — published Tuesday in the Harvard International Review — warns that Chinese development of AI technology poses "uncertain risks" to Western powers.
"This rapid progress in AI technology has sparked concerns about the world’s readiness to handle its development and use in safe and ethical ways, such as the possibility of dangerous applications in authoritarian settings, most relevantly China, as well as the uncertain risks posed by future AI technologies."
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President Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dual, Indonesia. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress attend the second plenary meeting of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The U.S. is currently producing the most advanced AI technology in the world. The report warns that future development of the field under the conditions of alternative political structures could threaten the ethics of its application.
"China’s AI development is highly concerning to the United States; some in the United States view the countries’ competition as a contest between democracy and authoritarianism—a sentiment highly reminiscent of the Cold War—in which Chinese dominance could pose a challenge to U.S. prominence on the world stage and even to the liberal international order with its associated rights and priorities," the report states.
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A view of the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images / Getty Images)
It continues, "Artificial intelligence can greatly bolster economic and military power and, thereby, political ascendancy; AI is expected to contribute US$17.5 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Therefore, military advances driven by AI would be invaluable in out-matching rivals."
Development of AI technology is hindered in China due to factors such as language — the Chinese language is less conducive to training artificial intelligence than English.
U.S. embargoes on shipping key materials for that could aid AI development is also an obstacle, the report claims.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen at the end of the Chinese Communist Party's 20th Party Congress on a giant screen a commercial district of Hangzhou in eastern China's Zhejiang province. (Chinatopix via AP / AP Newsroom)
"AI-driven data collection could greatly contribute to China’s nascent social credit system, which was published in November 2022 as a draft law but remains stagnant on a large scale," the report warns.
It continues, "Additionally, the use of AI to further increase monitoring of the internet and public areas would lend the Chinese government significant insight into individual patterns and information, furthering censorship, data collection, and control."
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) currently maintains a national "firewall" on internet use within its borders. Politically inconvenient searches, information critical of the CCP and content deemed "vulgar" or "bad culture" are censored from Chinese access.
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Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and a host of other tech leaders and artificial intelligence experts last month urged AI labs to pause development of powerful new AI systems in an open letter citing potential risks to society.
The letter asks AI developers to "immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4." It was issued by the Future of Life Institute and signed by more than 1,000 people, including Musk, who argued that safety protocols need to be developed by independent overseers to guide the future of AI systems.
GPT-4 is the latest deep learning model from OpenAI, which "exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks," according to the lab.
FOX Business' Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.