AI security

CHINA WILL SURPASS US IN AI AROUND 2025, SAYS GOOGLE’S ERIC SCHMIDT

In April, as Eric Schmidt watched a computer program defeat China’s top go player in a ground-breaking match in the Chinese city of Wuzhen, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company was struck less by the considerable innovations displayed by human and machine than by the audience: “To me the more interesting thing [was that] all the top computer science people in China had shown up.”

It showed, Schmidt said, the importance placed on AIdevelopment by both the Chinese government and its people, and was a postcard from the future competition for AI dominance.

“I’m assuming our [U.S.] lead will continue over the next five years and then that China will catch up extremely quickly,” the Google leader told the Center for New American Security’s Paul Scharre at the Artificial Intelligence & Global Security Summit on Wednesday.

Schmidt doesn’t like the term “arms race” to describe the U.S.-Chinese rivalry in artificial intelligence, in part because defining AIas a weapon is limiting at best and flatly inaccurate at worst. But it is a tool that can make one military, company, economy, and even nation much more effective than another. And China, he says, is positioning itself to devour the current U.S. advantage in just a few years.