Rule of the Robots

There are good reasons to believe that artificial intelligence will soonevolve into a general-purpose technology, one whose power and scalability will irreversibly transform civilization as we know it in the same way that electricity has.

While conventional wisdom would suggest that blue-collar workers face the greatest threat from technology, even white-collar jobs are at risk, especially the ones that revolve around routine analysis, manipulation, extraction, and communication of information.

This vision is accelerated by China’s rapid rise in the fields of artificial intelligence research and development. Based on the sheer number of their computer scientists and engineers, China has already taken the lead over the United States.

This document’s publication was crucial not only because of the ability of their central government to directly micromanage the country’s development of AI capability but also because it defined an overallstrategy, as well as clear incentives for regional and local governments.

While the jury is still out on China’s competitiveness in the overall field of AI, there is little doubt that they are at the apex of facial recognition.

Malicious deployment of deepfakes to generate not only audio, but photographs, videos, and even handwriting, is one of the most important security risks we face today.

Any drone could be a weapon of which you could launch hundreds ata time, but if you were operating them remotely, you would need hundreds of pilots.

In areas like self-driving cars and AI medical diagnostic tools, rules are already in development because the applications intersect with a framework for the sector they are affecting.

No solution can be perfect, but a productive alliance betweenindustry, education, and government, centered by a sufficiently informed regulatory agency could keep things moving in the right direction.

A robotic battle might unfold at a speed that would leave military and political leaders unable to fully understand or deescalate.