In November 2019, the US government's National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), an influential body chaired by former Google CEO and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, warned that China was using artificial intelligence to "advance an autocratic agenda." Just two months earlier, Schmidt was also seeking potential personal connections to China's AI industry on a visit to Beijing, newly disclosed emails reveal. Separately, tax filings show that a nonprofit private foundation overseen by Schmidt and his wife contributed to a fund that feeds into a private equity firm that has made investments in numerous Chinese tech firms, including those in AI. When the NSCAI issued its full findings in 2021, Schmidt and the NSCAI's vice chairman said in a statement that "China's plans, resources, and progress should concern all Americans," and warned that "China's domestic use of AI is a chilling precedent for anyone around the world who cherishes individual liberty." The 2019 email communications, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a nonprofit research initiative that tracks tech industry influence, show staff at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic venture, asking NSCAI employees to help identify "possible engagements [Schmidt] might have on AI, in a personal capacity."

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has developed a vast network of strategic investments and political relationships that's allowed the tech billionaire to wield significant influence over artificial intelligence and public policy in Washington, D.C., according to an explosive new report. The Bull Moose Project, a nonprofit advocacy group committed to developing "the next generation of America First leaders and policies," has spent months investigating Schmidt's financial disclosures, tax records, business documents and other publicly available information. On Thursday, the group released a report outlining its findings, first obtained by Fox News Digital. "Americans don't want to believe that they live under'the rule of the few,' rather than a democracy's'rule of the many' – but this sobering report is a wake-up call that our elected representatives can't ignore," said Aiden Buzzetti, president of the Bull Moose Project. "What we've put together reinforces the puppet-master role that big tech's leaders play in the public's lives. All items in this database and report are backed by reputable, verifiable sources, and we plan to update this it regularly so that the public has access to Schmidt's dealings, even if government refuses to disclose them. Get ready for your mind to be blown."

Eric Schmidt has prodded the Pentagon for years to hurry along its software-buying process. Today the AI tech investor and former Google CEO is more determined than ever to urge government decision-makers to pick up the pace, but not just when it comes to buying more software for the Defense Department. Schmidt wants the government to implement his sweeping blueprint to fight what he considers an existential threat to democracy posed by China's AI plans, an effort that could also bolster his own commercial AI interests. He says the U.S.'s national security and economic leadership are dependent upon spending billions to procure smarter software, bolster AI research, and build the country's computer science talent pool. And he says he knows better than the Pentagon itself how to remove the bureaucratic blockades preventing more agile use of AI by the government. But at the same time, Schmidt's venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors has invested in companies that have received multimillion-dollar contracts from federal agencies. Some of those investments and contracts -- reported here for the first time -- were granted between 2016 and 2021 while Schmidt chaired two influential government initiatives, the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

Ethics and Eric Schmidt are rare bedfellows. The former Google/Alphabet CEO/Chairman exudes a sense of predatory self-interest, always making the point that what he wants aligns with what is supposedly good for the United States. He has splashed money on numerous projects, including such artificial intelligence outfits as Rebellion Defense, all the time maintaining uncomfortably close ties to the government advisory circuit. For years, he has been hectoring the Department of Defense to uncritically embrace AI, in other words, machine-learning technology. "You absolutely suck at machine learning," Schmidt boldly told General Raymond Thomas in July 2016, head of US Special Operations Command.

Oracle, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are archenemies in the competitive cloud computing market. But in late 2018, top executives from the four companies, including future Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, teamed up on an unpaid side gig: advising the president and US Congress on how artificial intelligence can bolster national security. The executives were named to the National Security Commission on AI, created by Congress. Its chair was Eric Schmidt, previously CEO of Google, who later said it would help the US "harness this transformative technology to benefit both our economic and national security interests." Schmidt, Jassy, and the other commission members from Big Tech also had an economic interest in the topic.

Artificial intelligence is going to reorganize the world and change the course of human history. With China increasingly using technology to usher in a new form of authoritarianism, the world's democracies must come together and stand up for their own values and strategic interests. The world is only starting to grapple with how profound the artificial-intelligence revolution will be. AI technologies will create waves of progress in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production, and environmental sustainability. Successful adoption of AI will drive economies, reshape societies, and determine which countries set the rules for the coming century.

Washington – Japan, the United States, Australia and India on Tuesday agreed on the need for democratic countries to strengthen their cooperation in developing advanced technologies, apparently to counter China's rise in the field. Ministers and other representatives from the "Quad" nations reached the agreement at an international meeting hosted by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), an independent commission of the U.S. Congress that makes recommendations to the U.S. president and Congress. The participants worked to deepen the ties in the Quad framework in the run-up to a summit the four nations' leaders aim to hold in autumn this year. "Today, emerging technologies such as the internet of things, 5G, artificial intelligence, quantum technology not only produce economic benefits but have the potential to affect civil liberties, human rights and even national security," science and technology minister Shinji Inoue said as he attended the event in Washington virtually. "It is very important for the Quad countries … which share common values, to cooperate in emerging technologies so that sustainable, inclusive, resilient economic growth can be promoted in the Indo-Pacific region," he said.

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."

US President Joe Biden should not heed the advice of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) to reject calls for a global ban on autonomous weapons. Instead, Biden should work on an innovative approach to prevent humanity from relinquishing its judgment to algorithms during war. The NSCAI maintains that a global treaty that prohibits the development, deployment and use of artificial intelligence (AI) enabled weapons systems is not in the interests of the United States and would harm international security. It argues that Russia and China are unlikely to follow such a treaty. A global ban, it argues, would increase pressure on law-abiding nations and would enable others to utilise AI military systems in an unsafe and unethical manner.

Earlier this month, a high-level, congressionally mandated commission released its long-awaited recommendations for how the United States should approach artificial intelligence (AI) for national security. The recommendations were part of a nearly 800-page report from the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) that advocated for the use of AI but also highlighted important conclusions on key risks posed by AI-enabled and autonomous weapons, particularly the dangers of unintended escalation of conflict. The commission identified these risks as stemming from several factors, including system failures, unknown interactions between these systems in armed conflict, challenges in human-machine interaction, as well as an increasing speed of warfare that reduces the time and space for de-escalation. These same factors also contribute to the inherent unpredictability in autonomous weapons, whether AI-enabled or not. From a humanitarian and legal perspective, the NSCAI could have explored in more depth the risks such unpredictability poses to civilians in conflict zones and to international law.