{"id":1482038,"date":"2024-08-07T00:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1482038"},"modified":"2024-08-07T00:05:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T04:05:00","slug":"undeterred-ccp-to-ignore-risks-of-ai-weapons-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/undeterred-ccp-to-ignore-risks-of-ai-weapons-experts-say\/1482038\/","title":{"rendered":"Undeterred, CCP To Ignore Risks Of AI Weapons, Experts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Undeterred, CCP To Ignore Risks Of AI Weapons, Experts Say<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

Cutting-edge weapons powered by artificial intelligence are emerging as a global security hazard, especially in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to several experts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Industrial robots at a booth the day before the 2015 China International Industry Fair at National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai on Nov. 2, 2015. (Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Eager to militarily surpass the United States, the CCP is unlikely to heed safeguards around lethal AI technologies, which are increasingly dangerous in their own right, the experts have argued. The nature of the technology is prone to feeding some of the worst tendencies of the regime and the human psyche in general, they warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe implications are quite dramatic. <\/strong>And they may be the equal of the nuclear revolution,\u201d said Bradley Thayer, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, an expert on a strategic assessment of China, and a contributor to The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n

Killer Robots<\/h2>\n

The development of AI-powered autonomous weapons unfortunately is rapidly progressing, according to Alexander De Ridder, an AI developer and co-founder of Ink, an AI marketing firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re becoming quickly more efficient and quickly more effective<\/strong>,\u201d he told The Epoch Times, adding that \u201cthey\u2019re not at the point where they can replace humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Autonomous drones, tanks, ships, and submarines have become a reality along with more exotic modalities, such as the quadruped robot dogs, already armed with machine guns in China.<\/p>\n

Even AI-powered humanoid robots, the stuff of sci-fi horrors, are in production. Granted, they\u2019re still rather clumsy in the real world, but they won\u2019t be for long, De Ridder suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe capabilities for such robots are quickly advancing,<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Once they reach marketable usefulness and reliability, China is likely to turn its manufacturing might to their mass production, according to De Ridder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe market will be flooded with humanoid robots, and then it\u2019s up to the programming how they\u2019re used.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would mean military use, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of inevitable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Such AI-powered machines are very effective at processing images to discern objects\u2014to detect a human with their optical sensors, for example, explained James Qiu, an AI expert, founder of GIT Research Institute, and former CTO at FileMaker.<\/p>\n

That makes AI robots very good at targeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very effective killing machine<\/strong>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

AI Generals<\/h2>\n

On a broader level, multiple nations are working on an AI capable of informing and coordinating battlefield decisions\u2014an electronic general, according to Jason Ma, an AI expert and data research lead at a multinational Fortune 500 company. He didn\u2019t want the company\u2019s name mentioned to prevent any impression he was speaking on its behalf.<\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA), the CCP military, recently conducted battle exercises in which an AI was directly put in command.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military also has projects in this area, Ma noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very active research and development topic.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The need is obvious, he explained. Battlefield decisions are informed by a staggering amount of data from historical context and past intelligence to near-real time satellite data, all the way to millisecond-by-millisecond input from every camera, microphone, and whatever sensor on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cvery hard\u201d for humans to process such disparate and voluminous data streams, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more complex the warfare, the more important part it becomes how can you quickly integrate, summarize all this information to make the right decision, within seconds, or within even sub-second,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A Shield AI V-BAT Teams, a vertical take-off and lift (VTOL) Artificial Intelligence (AI) piloted Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), on the opening day of the Farnborough International Airshow 2024, south west of London, on July 22, 2024. (Justin Tallis\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Destabilization<\/h2>\n

AI weapons are already redefining warfare, the experts agreed. But the consequences are much broader. The technology is making the world increasingly volatile, Thayer said.<\/p>\n

On the most rudimentary level, AI-powered weapon targeting will likely make it much easier to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles, detect and destroy submarines, and shoot down long-range bombers. That could neutralize the U.S. nuclear triad capabilities, allowing adversaries to \u201cescalate beyond the nuclear level\u201d with impunity, he suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI would affect each of those components, which we developed and understood during the Cold War as being absolutely essential for a stable nuclear deterrent relationship,<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the Cold War, there was a broad understanding that conventional war between nuclear powers wasn\u2019t feasible. \u2026 AI is undermining that, because it introduces the possibility of conventional conflict between two nuclear states.\u201d<\/p>\n

If people continue developing AI-powered weapon systems without restrictions, the volatility will only worsen, he predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is greatly affecting the battlefield, but it\u2019s not yet determinative,<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If AI capabilities reach \u201cthe effect of nuclear war without using nuclear weapons,\u201d that would sit the world on a powder keg, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s possible, and it\u2019s quite likely that it is possible, then that\u2019s an extremely dangerous situation and incredibly destabilizing situation because it compels somebody who\u2019s on the receiving end of an attack to go first, not to endure the attack, but to aggress.\u201d<\/p>\n

In warfare lexicon, the concept is called \u201cdamage limitation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want the guy to go first, because you\u2019re going to get badly hurt. So you go first. And that\u2019s going to be enormously destabilizing in international politics.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

The concern is not just about killer robots or drones but also various unconventional AI weapons. An AI, for example, could be developed to find vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure such as the electric grid or water supply systems.<\/p>\n

Controlling the proliferation of such technologies appears particularly daunting. AI is just a piece of software. Even the largest models fit on a regular hard drive and can run on a small server farm. Simple but increasingly lethal AI weapons, such as killer drones, can be shipped in parts without raising alarm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth vertical and horizontal proliferation incentives are enormous, and it\u2019s easily done,\u201d Thayer said.<\/p>\n

De Ridder pointed out that the Chinese state wants to be seen as responsible on the world stage.<\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t stopped the CCP from supplying weapons or aiding weapon programs of other regimes and groups that aren\u2019t so reputationally constrained, other experts have noted.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if the CCP were to supply autonomous weapons to terrorist groups that would then tie up the U.S. military in endless asymmetrical conflicts. The CCP could even keep its distance and merely supply the parts, letting proxies assemble the drones, much like Chinese suppliers provide fentanyl precursors to Mexican cartels and let them manufacture, ship, and sell the drugs.<\/p>\n

The CCP, for example, has a long history of aiding Iranian weapon programs. Iran, in turn, supplies weapons to a panopticon of terrorist groups in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would be little disincentive for Iran to do this,\u201d Mr. Thayer said.<\/p>\n

An Iranian military truck carries an Arash drone during a military parade as part of a ceremony marking the country’s annual army day in Tehran on April 17, 2024. (Atta Kenare\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Human in the Loop<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s generally accepted, at least in the United States and among its allies, that the most crucial safeguard against AI weapons wreaking unforeseen havoc is keeping a human in control of important decisions, particularly the use of deadly force.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder no circumstances should any machines autonomously independently be allowed to take a human life ever,\u201d De Ridder said.<\/p>\n

The principle is commonly summarized in the phrase \u201chuman in the loop.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA human has a conscience and needs to wake up in the morning with remorse and the consequences of what they\u2019ve done, so that they can learn from it and not repeat atrocities<\/strong>,\u201d said De Ridder.<\/p>\n

Some of the experts pointed out, however, that the principle is already being eroded by the nature of combat transformed by AI capabilities.<\/p>\n

In the Ukraine war, for example, the Ukrainian military had to equip its drones with some measure of autonomy to guide themselves to their targets because their communication with human operators was being jammed by the Russian military.<\/p>\n

Such drones only run simpler AI, Ma said, given the limited power of the drone\u2019s onboard computer. But that may soon change as both AI models and computers are getting faster and more efficient.<\/p>\n

Apple is already working on an AI that could run on a phone, says Ma.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s highly likely it will be in the future put into a small chip.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moreover, in a major conflict where hundreds or perhaps thousands of drones are deployed at once, they can share computational power to perform much more complex autonomous tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all possible,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotten to the point where it\u2019s not science fiction; it\u2019s just [a matter of] if there is a group of people who want to devote the time to work on that. It\u2019s tangible technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Removing human control out of necessity isn\u2019t a new concept, according to James Fanell, former naval intelligence officer and an expert on China.<\/p>\n

He gave the example of the Aegis Combat System deployed on U.S.-guided missile cruisers and destroyers. It automatically detects and tracks aerial targets and launches missiles to shoot them down. Normally, a human operator controls the missile launches, but there\u2019s also a way to switch it to automatic mode, such as when there\u2019s too many targets for the human operator to track. The system then identifies and destroys targets on its own, Fanell said.<\/p>\n

In mass drone warfare, where an AI coordinates thousands of drones in a systematic attack, the side that gives its AI autonomy to shoot will gain a major speed advantage over the side where humans must approve each shot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the individual shooting level, people have to give up control because they can\u2019t really make all the decisions so quickly,\u201d Ma said.<\/p>\n

De Ridder pointed out that a drone shooting another drone on its own would be morally acceptable. But that could unleash a lot of autonomous shooting on a battlefield where there may be humans too, opening the door to untold collateral casualties.<\/p>\n

No Rules<\/h2>\n

Whatever AI safeguards may be practicable, the CCP is unlikely to abide by them anyway, most of the experts agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really see there will be any boundaries for China to be cautious about,\u201d Ma said. \u201cWhatever is possible, they will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that China would constrain themselves in the use of it, I don\u2019t see that<\/strong>,\u201d Fanell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to try to take advantage of it and be able to exploit it faster than we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

An UAV is shown during the military parade in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China on Oct. 1, 2019. (Andrea Verdelli\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The human-in-the-loop principle could simply be reinterpreted to apply to \u201ca bigger, whole battle level\u201d rather than \u201cthe individual shooting level,\u201d Ma said.<\/p>\n

But once one accepts that AI can start shooting on its own in some circumstances, the principle of human control becomes malleable, Fanell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re willing to accept that in a tactical sense, who\u2019s to say you won\u2019t take it all the way up to the highest level of warfare?<\/strong>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the natural evolution of a technology like this, and I\u2019m not sure what we can do to stop it. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re going to have a code of ethics that says in warfare [let\u2019s abide by] the Marquess of Queensberry Rules of boxing. It\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if humans are kept in control of macro decisions, such as whether to launch a particular mission, AI can easily dominate the decision-making process, multiple experts agreed.<\/p>\n

The danger wouldn\u2019t be a poorly performing AI but rather one that works so well that it instills trust in the human operators.<\/p>\n

De Ridder was skeptical of prognostications about superintelligent AI that vastly exceeds humans. He acknowledged, though, that AI obviously exceeds humans in some regards, particularly speed. It can crunch mountains of data and spit out a conclusion almost immediately.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s virtually impossible to figure out how exactly an AI comes to its conclusions, according to\u00a0 Ma and Qiu.<\/p>\n

De Ridder said that he and others are working on ways to restrict AI to a human-like workflow, so the individual steps of its reasoning are more transparent.<\/p>\n

But given the incredible amount of data involved, it would be impossible for the AI to explain how each piece of information factored into its reasoning without overwhelming the operator, Ma acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the human operator clearly knows this is a decision [produced] after the AI processed terabytes of data, he won\u2019t really have the courage to overrule that in most cases. So I guess yes, it will be formality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman in the loop is a comfortable kind of phrase, but in reality, humans will give up control quickly.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Public Pressure<\/h2>\n

Even if humans are kept in the loop only nominally, it\u2019s still important, De Ridder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as we keep humans in the loop, we can keep humans accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, all the experts agreed that public pressure is likely to constrain AI weapon development and use, at least in the United States.<\/p>\n

Ma gave the example of Google terminating a defense contract over the objections of its staff.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t envision an analogous situation in China, though.<\/p>\n

Qiu agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything inside China is a resource the CCP can leverage,\u201d he said. \u201cYou cannot say, \u2018Oh, this is a private company.\u2019\u00a0 There is no private company per se [in China].\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the CCP cannot dispose of public sentiment altogether,\u00a0De Ridder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government can only survive if the population wants to collaborate.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no indication that the Chinese populace sees AI military use as an urgent concern.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, companies and universities in China appear to be eager to pick up military contracts,\u00a0 Ma said.<\/p>\n

De Ridder called for \u201can international regulatory framework that can be enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how such regulations could be enforced against China, which has a long history of refusing any limits on its military development. The United States has long vainly attempted to bring China to the table on nuclear disarmament. Recently, China refused a U.S. request to guarantee that it wouldn\u2019t use AI for nuclear strike decisions.<\/p>\n

If the United States regulates its own AI development, it could create a strategic vulnerability, multiple experts suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose regulations will be very well studied by the CCP and used as an attack tool,\u201d Qiu said.<\/p>\n

Even if some kind of agreement is reached, the CCP has a poor track record of keeping promises, according to Thayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny agreement is a pie crust made to be broken.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Solutions<\/h2>\n

De Ridder says he hopes that perhaps nations would settle for using AI in less destructive ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of ways that you can use AI to achieve your objectives that does not involve sending a swarm of killer drones to each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen push comes to shove, nobody wants these conflicts to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other experts believed, however, that the CCP wouldn\u2019t mind starting such a conflict\u2014as long as it would see a clear path to victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chinese are not going to be constrained by our ruleset,\u201d Fanell said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to do whatever it takes to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reliance on the whispers of an AI military advisor, one that instills confidence by processing mountains of data and producing convincing battle plans, could be particularly dangerous as it may create a vision of victory where there previously wasn\u2019t one, according to Thayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see how that might be very attractive to a decision maker, especially one that is hyper aggressive, as is the CCP,\u201d\u00a0 Thayer said. \u201cIt may make aggression more likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only one way to stop it, which is to be able to defeat it,\u201d Fanell said.<\/p>\n

An AI chip of Tongfu Microelectronics is displayed during the World Semiconductor Congress in Nanjing in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province on July 19, 2023. (STR\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Chuck de Caro, former consultant for the Pentagon\u2019s Office of Net Assessment, recently called for the United States to develop electromagnetic weapons that could disable computer chips. It may even be possible to develop energy weapons that could disable a particular kind of chips, he wrote in a Blaze op-ed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, without functioning chips, AI doesn\u2019t work.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Another option might be to develop an AI superweapon that could serve as a deterrent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there an AI Manhattan Project that the U.S. is doing that can create the effect that Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have on the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party, which is to bring them to the realization that, \u2018Okay, maybe we don\u2019t want to go there. This is mutually assured destruction?\u2019 I don\u2019t know. But that\u2019s what I would be [doing],\u201d Fanell said.<\/p>\n

That could leave the world in a Cold War-like stand-off\u2014hardly an ideal state, but one likely seen as preferable to abnegating military advantage to the CCP.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery country knows it\u2019s dangerous, but nobody can stop because they are afraid they will be left behind,\u201d Ma said.<\/p>\n

De Ridder\u2019s says it might take a profound shock to halt the AI arms race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might need like a world war, with immense human tragedy, to ban the use of autonomous AI killing machines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 08\/06\/2024 – 20:05<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/undeterred-ccp-ignore-risks-ai-weapons-experts-say<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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