War, AI and the New Global Arms Race: Alexandr Wang (Transcript)

Read the full transcript of technologist Alexandr Wang’s talk titled “War, AI and the New Global Arms Race” at TED Talks 2023 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The Dawn of AI Warfare

ALEXANDR WANG: Artificial intelligence and warfare. Let’s talk about what this really could look like. Swarms of lethal drones with facial recognition that know your every move or unmanned armed robots that are near impossible to defeat. Autonomous fighter jets that can travel at supersonic speeds and can withstand greater gravitational force than a human pilot could survive. Cyber attacks that incapacitate critical port infrastructure or disinformation campaigns and deep fakes that throw presidential elections or even foreign adversaries take out satellites.

Our eyes and ears in space, render us blind to global events. All super intelligent weapons of terror. We’re at the dawn of a new age of warfare. I grew up in the birthplace of a technology that defined the last era of warfare, the atomic bomb. I was keenly aware of how this technology had fundamentally shaped geopolitics and the nature of war.

Personal Background

My parents were both scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory. My dad’s a physicist and my mom’s an astrophysicist. Their scientific work in plasma fluid dynamics will have deep implications for how we understand our universe. So naturally, I knew I wanted to work on something just as impactful. I decided to become a programmer and study artificial intelligence.

The AI Arms Race

AI is one of the most critical technologies of our time and will have deep implications for national security and democracy globally. As we saw in World War 2 with the atomic bomb, the country that is able to most rapidly and effectively integrate new technology into war fighting wins. There’s no reason to believe this will be any different with AI. But in the AI arms race, we’re already behind. From a technological perspective, China is already ahead of the United States In computer vision AI and in large language models like Chat GPT, they’re fast followers.

The Data Challenge

In terms of military implementations, they’re outspending us. Adjusted for total military budget, China is spending 10 times more than the United States. Why are we so far behind? The answer is 2 fold. 1st, data supremacy.

ALSO READ: Apple CEO Tim Cook Presents at Special Event September 2013 (Transcript)

Despite having the largest fleet of military hardware in the world, most of the data from this fleet is thrown away or inaccessible, hidden away on hard drives that never see the light of day. This is our Achilles’ heel. In an AI war, everything boils down to data. For defense AI, data from the internet is not enough. Most of the data needs to come from our military assets, sensors, and collaborations with tech companies.

The Tech Industry’s Role

Military commanders need to know how to use data as a military asset. I’ve heard this firsthand many times from my conversations with military personnel, including most recently from Lieutenant General Richard R. Kaufman, deputy commanding general for United States Army Futures Command. 2nd, despite being home to the leading technology companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, the US tech industry has largely shied away from taking on government contracts. Somewhere along the line, tech leaders decided that working with the government was taboo. As a technologist, I’m often asked how I’m bettering this world.

AI in the Ukraine War

This is how I’m improving the future of our world by helping my country succeed and providing the best tools and technology to ensure that the United States government can defend its citizens, allies, and partners. The Ukraine war has demonstrated that the nature of war has changed. Through AI overmatch, Ukraine is challenging an adversary with far superior numbers of troops and weapons. Before the Ukraine war, Russia had spent an estimated 65,000,000,000 US dollars on its military expenditures. Whereas Ukraine only spent about $6,000,000,000 It’s estimated that Russia had over 900,000 military troops and 1300 aircraft whereas Ukraine only had 200,000 military troops and 130 aircraft.

AI’s Impact on Defense

Technologies such as drones, AI based targeting and image intelligence and Javelin missiles have enabled a shocking defense of Ukraine. AI is proving invaluable for defending Ukrainian cities and infrastructure against missile and drone bombardment. At scale, we’re using our novel machine learning algorithm for battle damage assessment in key areas affected by the war. We rapidly analyzed over 2,000 square kilometers and have identified over 370,000 structures including 1,000 not previously identified by other open source datasets. We focused on Kiev, Kharkiv and Dnipro and provided our data directly in a publicly accessible dataset to the broader AI community.

ALSO READ: TRANSCRIPT: Will AI Make Us the Last Generation to Read and Write? - Victor Riparbelli

The Future of Information Warfare

One of the key problems we’re solving is using AI to analyze massive amounts of imagery and detect objects because humans just can’t keep up. We received an overwhelming response from our free AI ready dataset and have provided it directly to the United States and NATO allies. And it’s been downloaded over 2,000 times by AI companies, researchers, developers, and GIS practitioners. AI can also be used for change detection. Simply put, algorithms can constantly monitor imagery and notify a human to investigate further if there’s a change or a movement.

It’s clear that AI is increasingly powering warfare. And based on the rate of progress in the AI fields, I predict that in 10 years it will be the dominant force. This information and misinformation are already huge problems and this technology is only gonna make it worse. Tools like Chat GPT have enabled AI to generate imagery, text, audio, video, code, and even reason. These tools can generate realistic looking and realistic sounding content which on top of bot run social media accounts will make it nearly impossible to identify disinformation and misinformation online.

The Threat of Disinformation

Bad actors can use these tools to supercharge misinformation and propagate falsehoods. China already uses disinformation campaigns and social media manipulations heavily in Taiwan, particularly during elections. Or take Russia’s propaganda machine, which in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, created a deep fake of Ukrainian president Zelensky calling for Ukrainian troops to surrender.

This deep fake was easy to spot, but the next one may not be. This also takes place within our borders.

From social media algorithm manipulation to advertising micro targeting and geofencing to deep fakes of politicians and bot run social media accounts, the United States is not excused from exacerbating disinformation and misinformation. These tools are universally accessible at low or no cost. Meaning they can be employed by anyone anywhere to undermine the sanctity of democracy globally. However, all hope is not lost. If we properly invest into data infrastructure and data preparation, all this can be avoided.

ALSO READ: Fireside Chat: Elon Musk at Ron Baron's 32nd Baron Investment Conference (Transcript)

The Future of Deterrence

Deterrence is nothing new to military thinking. As we saw in World War 2 with the atomic bomb, it was a primary factor in deterring foreign adversaries from going nuclear war for more than 6 decades. These are stakes of going war with such a technology were simply too high. We’re likely to see a new calculus emerge with AI. It’s uncharted territory.

Nobody knows what it’ll look like or the toll it will take. How do we know if our AI is better than our adversaries? We won’t. But one thing is clear. AI can only be as powerful as the underlying data that is used to fuel its algorithms.

Call to Action

Data will be a new kind of ammunition in the era of AI warfare. In the tech industry, we often talk about missions. They’re often frivolous. Do they really change the world or save lives? This mission on the other hand really matters.

The AI war will define the future of our world and has the potential to shift the balance of diplomatic power. It’s clear that digital warfare is not some dystopian reality tucked away in a faraway future. It is taking place in the here and now. We cannot sit by the sidelines and watch the rise of an authoritarian regime. It is in moments like this that technologists can either rise to the challenge or stand idle.

I encourage my fellow technologists to understand the austerity and severity of our times and commit themselves to supporting national security. While I find it shocking that most American AI companies have chosen not to support national security, I do hope others join us. We must fight for the world we wanna live in. It’s never mattered more. Thank you.