The newest cultural-political fad? Call for a “pause” in artificial intelligence development. As columnist Dominic Pino observes, politicians can’t actually tell us what this “pause” should entail.
That’s a tell that these pausers are performing for public opinion. On this issue at least, President Donald Trump sees the bigger picture. He knows that America currently holds the global initiative on AI. He knows that the United States must retain that initiative or suffer its gravest defeat in history.
Yes, the looming power of AI systems means that safety concerns are significant. Superseding “kill switches” and other safeguards will have to be introduced into AI systems, especially generative AI, so that they cannot act against the Constitution or the people. That said, it would be extraordinarily dangerous to pause AI development. One word explains why.
China is in a century-defining race with the U.S. to lead the world in next-generation technologies such as AI and quantum. If China wins this race, the negative effects for Americans will extend far beyond the economic realm. China would use its AI dominance to subjugate the Pacific region and its neighbors militarily, and to engage in truly unconstrained espionage against American businesses and individuals. Does anyone seriously expect that a nation which wages a genocide against its own people would be a beneficent global master of the AI industry?
Of course not. In turn, the only way to restrain this malevolent ambition is for the U.S. to overmatch Chinese technology with its own. Indeed, China is already doing everything it can to steal American AI and other proprietary research. It is doing so to bolster its economic, military, and scientific position against the United States. President Xi Jinping’s urgency here reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s understanding of what’s at stake in this battle. And we can theorize what a CCP victory would entail.
It would mean the People’s Liberation Army being able to blind U.S. military communications and penetrate American defenses with hyperintelligent missile and drone swarm attacks.
It would mean a relentless campaign to find and exploit as-yet-unknown flaws in the software of America’s most valuable companies and most important government agencies. And then steal or corrupt priceless information. Or use that access for long-term espionage.
Befitting both the CCP’s ideology and historic Chinese political-military doctrine, it would mean deception campaigns to influence American public opinion in China’s favor.
It would mean American industry existing under the CCP’s perpetual thumb, imprisoning the risk-taking entrepreneurship and cutting-edge science that have long defined America. China would then establish global marketplace dominance.
It would mean Beijing being able to demand political fealty from America and the rest of the world and launch devastating cyberattacks absent that fealty.
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It should be obvious, then, that the U.S. must establish AI mastery before entertaining any unilateral “pause” in AI research. Though apparently beyond the contemplation of too many senators and AI aficionados, this necessity is common sense from a national security perspective.
To do otherwise is to trust in the morality of the CCP, which is tantamount to bathing in a saltwater crocodile-infested river. Either the U.S. keeps racing toward AI dominance, or American schools start teaching about the Politburo and Standing Committee.