AI Technology: Autocratic Regimes and China's Growing Interest
Key Highlights :
The world of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving, and it has been revealed that autocratic regimes around the world have a particular interest in this technology. Research conducted by Harvard Economics Professor David Yang has shown that China is exporting huge amounts of AI technology, dwarfing its contributions in other frontier technology sectors.
Yang also demonstrated that autocratic regimes have a strong interest in AI, as it provides them with the ability to predict the whereabouts, thoughts, and behaviours of citizens. This creates an alignment of purpose between AI technology and autocratic rulers, and it gives Chinese companies with government contracts a major advantage, as they are able to use state data to bolster their commercial projects.
China has become a leader in the field of AI, due to its talent, technological skill and innovation, and national investment in science and technology. For more than two decades, China has been deeply embedded in the international network of AI research and development (R&D), co-authoring papers with peers abroad, hosting American corporate AI labs, and helping expand the frontiers of global AI research.
However, in the past five years, these ties between China and global networks for R&D have come under increasing scrutiny from governments, universities, companies, and civil society. This is due to a combination of factors, including the growing capabilities of AI itself and its impacts on economic competitiveness and national security; China’s unethical use of AI, including its deployment of AI tools for mass surveillance of its citizens; the rise in Chinese capabilities and ambitions in AI, making it a genuine competitor with the US in the field; and the policies by which the Chinese state bolstered those capabilities, including state directed investments and illicit knowledge transfers from abroad.
It is clear that China's interest in AI technology is growing, and autocratic regimes are taking advantage of this technology to further their own interests. It is therefore essential that governments, universities, companies, and civil society continue to monitor the development of AI technology and its use by autocratic regimes.
