Europe's AI delusion

If the draft of its AI strategy is anything to go by, the EU has yet to recognize the technology's epochal significance Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images Brussels is failing to grasp threats and opportunities of artificial intelligence. When the computer program AlphaGo beat the Chinese professional Go player Ke Jie in a three-part match, it didn't take long for Beijing to realize the implications. If algorithms can already surpass the abilities of a master Go player, it can't be long before they will be similarly supreme in the activity to which the classic board game has always been compared: war. As I've written before, the great conflict of our time is about who can control the next wave of technological development: the widespread application of artificial intelligence in the economic and military spheres. That's why it's so worrying that while China has been quick to react to the threats and opportunities of AI, the European Union -- if the draft of its AI strategy is anything to go by -- has yet to recognize the technology's epochal significance.