Big Tech is fueling an AI "arms race": It could be terrifying -- or just a giant scam

Early in the 2020 presidential campaign, Democratic candidates Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang tried to build political momentum around the claim that the United States is losing ground in a new arms race with China -- not over nuclear missiles or conventional arms but artificial intelligence, or AI. Around the same time, former President Trump launched the American AI Initiative, which sought to marshal AI technologies against "adversarial nations for the security of our economy and our nation," as Trump's top technology adviser put it. Buttigieg, Yang and Trump may have agreed about little else, but they appeared to go along with the nonpartisan think tanks and public policy organizations –– many of them funded by weapons contractors –– that have worked to promote the supposedly alarming possibility that China and Russia may be "beating" the U.S. in defense applications for AI. Hawkish or "centrist" research organizations like the Center for New American Security (CNAS), the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation, despite their policy and ideological differences in many areas, have argued that America must ratchet up spending on AI research and development, lest it lose its place as No. 1. Just last week, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) published a sweeping 756-page report, culminating two years of work following the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, asking Congress to authorize a $40 billion federal investment in AI research and development, which the NSCAI calls "a modest down payment."