Microsoft's involvement with Chinese military's AI tech raises US concerns
The US government is concerned about Microsoft’s involvement in the development of artificial intelligence technology with a Chinese university run by the country's military that is intended for use in surveillance and censorship.
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A report from the Financial Times on Wednesday revealed that there were three papers, published between March and November last year that were co-written by academics at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing and researchers with affiliations to China’s National University of Defense Technology.
One of the papers described an AI tool to recreate detailed environmental maps by analysing human faces, which could have clear applications for surveillance and censorship.
According to Samm Sacks, an official at the think-tank New America and a China tech policy expert, the papers raised “red flags because of the nature of the technology, the author affiliations, combined with what we know about how this technology is being deployed in China right now”.
“The [Chinese] government is using these technologies to build surveillance systems and to detain minorities [in Xinjiang],” she added.
The report revealed that the US government is considering whether research collaboration in areas such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality should requires stricter export controls.
Washington is already suspicious of Chinese intentions and is immersed in an ongoing trade war with Beijing, partly due to that.
Indeed, some of the biggest sticking points in the trade talks with the Asian giant had related to claims that Chinese companies have been stealing intellectual property related to key new technologies.
Adam Segal, director of cyber space policy at the think-tank Council on Foreign Relations, told the Financial Times: “US-China academic partnerships are increasingly under the microscope as the FBI focuses on the threat of espionage from students and scientists, and the defence department [focuses] on the possibility that frontier technologies might eventually make their way to the PLA [People’s Liberation Army].”
These concerns are not the only ones of importance to the US, Chinese tech giants such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are improving their AI and could challenge the current tech leaders from the US such as Google or Amazon.
In an interview with Fortune, on Tuesday, a New York University business professor and futurist Amy Webb said the Chinese government supports the country's largest tech companies and has a much better relationship when compared to that between the US government and US tech giants. According to Webb, this could have implications for the US economy.
The White House and Pentagon have “very little understanding of what A.I. actually is and how it actually works,” Webb said.
Amazon or Google have in recent times ran afoul of Washington, including after the former's recent decision to scrap its drone program with the Pentagon after staff protests.
And some political leaders in the States such as Senator Elizabeth Warren have also harshly criticised the tech industry, accusing it of anti-trust violations, a state of affairs that stood in stark contrast to Chinese corporations working together with the government.
Such differences make it harder for the US government to harness and control the best AI technology said Webb.
In China, “nobody is going to be using their political campaigns to point fingers to garner votes,” Webb says.