Clock Ticking for Strategy to Maintain U.S. Global Lead in Artificial Intelligence - Seapower

U.S. technological advantages over great power competitor China could be lost in less than 10 years without a robust and comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) security strategy, according to the findings of an independent government commission. "For the first time since World War II, the United States' technological predominance -- which undergirds both our economic and military competitiveness -- is under severe threat by the People's Republic of China," Robert Work, vice chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, told a live-streamed Pentagon press briefing April 9 on the commission's final report. And the most important technology "that the United States must master is artificial intelligence and all of its associated technologies," Work added. Likening artificial intelligence to how harnessing electricity opened up a field of fields, Work said AI would affect quantum computing, healthcare, finance and military competition. Work, who served as deputy secretary of defense in the Obama and Trump administrations, stressed the immediate and long-term risks.