Artificial Intelligence and National Security - Economic Impacts and Considerations

In July 2017, The State Council of China released the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan," outlining China's strategy to build a US$150 billion Chinese AI industry in a few short years, and to become the leading nation in AI by the year 2030. Other nations followed suit quickly with national AI strategies of their own – with the US trailing behind by nearly two years before developing a semblance of an AI initiative. The proposed 2021 budget for the national security budget in the US is $740 billion – with a billions of dollars being earmarked for AI specifically (learn more: US Public Sector AI Opportunity Report). AI applications play a considerable role in the direction of technology development in many defense sectors, particularly in surveillance, intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, logistics, command and control, cyberspace, and information operations – but AI's relevance for national security is just as much in it's implications for the economy as it is for defense itself. This article is based on my presentation at the UNICRI / Shanghai Institutes for International Studies event Artificial Intelligence – Reshaping National Security – held in Shanghai. While I'm not able to embed my full slide deck from that presentation publicly, I am able to share some of the key ideas from my talk – with a focus on AI job loss and defense implications.