AI and Non-State Actors

June 16, 2023

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

“AI Weapons Need a Safe Back Door for Human Control” contains a couple of interesting statements.

The first is a quote from Hugh Durrant-Whyte, director of the Centre for Translational Data Science at the University of Sydney. He allegedly said:

China is investing arguably twice as much as everyone else put together. We need to recognize that it genuinely has gone to town. If you look at the payments, if you look at the number of publications, if you look at the companies that are involved, it is quite significant. And yet, it’s important to point out that the US is still dominant in this area.

For me, the important point is the investment gap. Perhaps the US should be more aggressive in its identifying and funding promising smart software companies?

The second statement which caught my attention was:

James Black, assistant director of defense and security research group RAND Europe, warned that non-state actors could lead in the proliferation of AI-enhanced weapons systems. “A lot of stuff is very much going to be difficult to control from a non-proliferation perspective, due to its inherent software-based nature. A lot of our export controls and non-proliferation regimes that exist are very much focused on old-school traditional hardware…

Several observations:

Smart software ups the ante in modern warfare, intelligence, and law enforcement activities
The smart software technology has been released into the wild. As a result, bad actors have access to advanced tools
The investment gap is important but the need for skilled smart software engineers, mathematicians, and support personnel is critical in the US. University research departments are, in my opinion, less and less productive. The concentration of research in the hands of a few large publicly traded companies suggests that military, intelligence, and law enforcement priorities will be ignored.

Net net: China, personnel, and institution biases require attention by senior officials. These issues are not fooling around with Twitter scale. More is at stake. Urgent action is needed, which may be uncomfortable for fans of TikTok and expensive dinners in Washington, DC.

Stephen E Arnold, June 16, 2023

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under AI, Governance, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.