Artificial Intelligence Is America’s Achilles Heel Against China

With the release of the much-anticipated National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence report, the U.S. must confront an inconvenient truth: America, in the words of co-chairmen Eric Schmidt and Bob Work, “is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era.” Schmidt, the former chief executive of Google, and Work, former deputy secretary of defense, are as deeply versed in this subject as anyone in government or the private sector. Americans should treat this threat as a looming tower. What is the state of play and where does the U.S. go from here?

First, let’s address the most obvious and concerning opponent in the AI field: China. The Chinese have been focused relentlessly for a decade on AI, and have built a “whole of government approach” from the ground up, to become the dominant global AI power. This includes a massive focus on science, technology, engineering and math education at every level; grooming of the brightest prodigies in the field; increasing levels of research and development, including for military operations; garnering control of vast pools of data from social networks (data is the “new oil,” as the saying goes); industrial espionage to gather solutions from international competitors; and incorporation of AI into every field of government and private endeavor. It is a clever and consistently applied strategy to dominate this vital field.