{"id":195780,"date":"2021-09-27T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=195780"},"modified":"2021-09-24T09:57:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T08:57:01","slug":"eric-schmidt-cashes-in-on-artificial-intelligence-arms-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/09\/eric-schmidt-cashes-in-on-artificial-intelligence-arms-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Schmidt Cashes in on Artificial Intelligence Arms Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

21 Sep 2021 – <\/em>The United States is leading a new artificial intelligence arms race that could spell the end of humanity.<\/p>\n

Back in 2014, a few years before he died, Stephen Hawking warned<\/a> us about artificial intelligence:<\/p>\n

The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have, have proved very useful. But I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn\u2019t compete and would be superseded.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today, artificial intelligence, or AI, is the centerpiece of the U.S. empire\u2019s plan to maintain global dominance.<\/p>\n

AI is essentially computer super-intelligence that does what human brains can not. Exponential technological advances have rendered our human brains, constrained by the slow process of biological evolution, inferior to modern supercomputers.<\/p>\n

Applied in the service of humanity, artificial intelligence has incredible promise. But applied in the service of empire and the permanent war state, it spells disaster.<\/p>\n

The Third Offset<\/h2>\n

The focus on artificial intelligence is part of what is known as the Third Offset, a strategy that seeks to offset advances in military technology by Russia and China in order to maintain U.S. global military superiority, thus ensuring no country can challenge U.S. imperialism.<\/p>\n

The Third Offset is the latest iteration of the strategy the U.S. used to dominate the globe throughout the Cold War. A few years after World War II, Washington implemented The First Offset strategy and developed a massive nuclear arsenal. This sparked an arms race with the Soviet Union that nearly led to all-out nuclear war.<\/p>\n

The Second Offset began in the 1970s when the Soviet Union had achieved parity in nuclear weapons. The U.S. began developing an arsenal of long-range, precision-guided bombs and stealth technology.<\/p>\n

Now Russia and China have caught up to the U.S. in conventional military might. So in 2014,\u00a0 soon after the Obama Administration\u2019s Pivot To Asia began, the U.S. announced the formation of the Third Offset strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday I\u2019m announcing a new Defense Innovation Initiative \u2013 an initiative that we expect to develop into a game-changing third \u2018offset\u2019 strategy,\u201d then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel remarked<\/a>. \u201cThis new initiative is an ambitious department-wide effort to identify and invest in innovative ways to sustain and advance America\u2019s military dominance for the 21st century.\u201d Hagel\u2019s speech included the announcement of a Pentagon office in Silicon Valley, called the Defense Innovation Unit. This has since expanded to have offices in military technology hubs in Austin, Texas and Boston, and at the Pentagon itself.<\/p>\n

In April 2015, Hagel\u2019s replacement, Ash Carter, gave a landmark speech to Silicon Valley CEOs at Stanford University, urging them to enlist in the new arms race. \u201cThis is a serious matter,\u201d Carter explained<\/a>. \u201cAnd it requires our collaboration. But in addition to dangers, there are also really great opportunities to be seized through a new level of partnership between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley \u2013 opportunities that we can only realize together.\u201d Carter gently reminded his audience that the Silicon Valley giants owe their existence to the Pentagon and CIA:<\/p>\n

Consider the historic role that DoD and government investments have played in helping spur ground-up technology innovation \u2013 both in this Valley, and on this campus\u2026 [M]ost technologies used throughout Silicon Valley \u2013 including many that Apple brilliantly integrated into the iPhone \u2013 can be traced back to government or DoD research and expenditures. The developers of multi-touch worked together through a fellowship funded by the National Science Foundation and the CIA\u2026<\/p>\n

The government helped ignite the spark, but this was the place that nurtured the flame that created incredible applications. I mention this because it speaks to a partnership that has long existed between America\u2019s technology sector and its government and defense institutions,\u2026 a relationship that can continue in a way that benefits us both.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZtakBIYWaQI<\/p>\n

Enter Eric<\/h2>\n

The key Silicon Valley figure merging the Pentagon and the Valley is former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. As soon as the Pivot to Asia began, Schmidt was meeting<\/a> with Pentagon officials.<\/p>\n

In 2016, he was named head of the newly formed Defense Innovation Board to advise the Pentagon. Schmidt toured some hundred U.S. military bases and installations, advising them on how to use technology to increase their lethality. He went to a U.S. base in Qatar to advise the military on how to more efficiently run tankers that refuel warplanes for bombing runs in Iraq and Yemen.<\/p>\n

The Third Offset Strategy and AI arms race continued through the Trump era, its principles delineated in the 2018 National Defense Strategy<\/a> that officially announced the end of the so-called \u201cwar on terror\u201d and return to Cold-War politics, euphemistically termed \u201cinter-state strategic competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Pentagon chief, Mark Esper, touted<\/a> AI developments in September 2020:<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s era of great-power competition, as new technologies alter the character of warfare, we must stay ahead of our near peer rivals, namely Russia and China\u2026 [A]rtificial intelligence is in a league of its own, with the potential to transform nearly every aspect of the battlefield, from the back office to the front lines.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Schmidt was then appointed to head the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence<\/a>\u00a0 (NSCAI) \u2014 a body created to advise the government on AI development.<\/p>\n

He preaches the orientalist trope that the U.S. is the torchbearer of democracy and that the rise of China is ushering in an alien form of technocratic authoritarianism contrary to American values. His answer is for the government to pour huge amounts of funding into technology.<\/p>\n

Pentagon, Inc.<\/h2>\n

Schmidt\u2019s deputy at the NSCAI is Robert Work, a former top Pentagon official and author of the Third Offset Strategy\u2019s foundational documents. In a rare and candid moment, Work once told<\/a> a group of Air Force cadets that \u201cThe Department of Defense is one of the biggest corporations on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pentagon is a corporation, therefore it\u2019s goal is to generate profit \u2014 in its particular case, through war. And what better way to make money than ramping up fear of a foreign threat. Eric Schmidt has made common cause with Congresswoman Liz Cheney to do exactly that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you lay out why the China threat is important,\u201d Schmidt told Cheney during an August 2021 appearance at the Aspen Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been engaged in my view in a very methodical, very effective, very aggressive campaign effort against us for many years across every domain,\u201d Cheney commented. \u201cThey need to recognize that our capabilities, our will are there to prevent them from using their military to take action against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree,\u201d Schmidt replied.<\/p>\n

The NSCAI\u2019s February 2021 Report states:<\/p>\n

In the future, warfare will pit algorithm against algorithm. The sources of battlefield advantage will shift from traditional factors like force size and levels of armaments to factors like superior data collection and assimilation, connectivity, computing power, algorithms, and system security.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Schmidt and the Pentagon are seeking to create hyper-advanced connected systems of autonomous weapons that will make battlefield decisions at speeds exponentially faster than the human brain can understand. Hence, \u201cvictory\u201d in war will be determined by which computer system dominates, regardless of the cost to human life.<\/p>\n

The report also calls for AI to be used against \u201cforeign and domestic terrorists operating within our borders.\u201d This raises major concerns about further encroachment of the U.S. surveillance state.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Schmidt is positioning himself to make hefty sums off of his ties.<\/p>\n

According to a report in The Prospect<\/i>, \u201c[A]s a venture capitalist, Schmidt has invested millions of dollars in more than a half-dozen national-security startups that sell those very technologies back to the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

A video game with millions of real corpses?<\/h2>\n

Even though the U.S. military budget is already around three times greater than China\u2019s, the AI arms race has been used to justify the largest Pentagon research and development budget in history. Biden\u2019s DoD budget request for the year 2022 includes $112 billion<\/a> for R&D -\u2013 up $5.5 billion from 2021.<\/p>\n

It is a bipartisan effort that has spanned three administrations. But how dangerous is it really?<\/p>\n

A candid U.S. Army report remarks:<\/p>\n

By distancing the human from conflict, the technology lowers not only the costs and risks associated with war, but the political bar to initiating hostilities as well. As a result, the deterrent quality desired in the Third Offset could actually increase the likelihood that the United States would use force and ultimately decrease global stability.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It adds:<\/p>\n

Third Offset capabilities increasingly remove the soldier from the conflict \u2014 introducing a video game-like effect into ethical decision-making that often leads to moral disengagement.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2026The United States must pursue Third Offset capabilities with the understanding that our actions will drive and incentivize continued proliferation of nuclear weapons.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least one person in the Obama State Department had some concern. At a 2017 panel with Eric Schmidt, an official in the audience asked<\/a> him if he was concerned about igniting an artificial intelligence arms race:<\/p>\n

Schmidt: Do you think there\u2019s going to be an AI arms race?<\/i><\/p>\n

State Department official: Yes.<\/i><\/p>\n

Schmidt: You do?<\/i><\/p>\n

State Department official: Well, you just said China is going to be ahead of us by 2020. Doesn\u2019t that concern you?<\/i><\/p>\n

Schmidt: It does. But that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean it\u2019s an arms race. Depends on how it\u2019s done.<\/i><\/p>\n

State Department official: Well you said China is interested in using AI for weapons\u2026 for military purposes.<\/i><\/p>\n

Schmidt: I said for commercial as well as defense purposes, which is what they\u2019ve said publicly.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

State Department official: So it doesn\u2019t concern you at all?<\/i><\/p>\n

Schmidt: It actually does but the reason I\u2019m provoking you is that it\u2019s so easy to go to the movie. You know the movie of the robot.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

State Department official: Yeah, I\u2019m not talking about the Terminator but, you know as you mentioned the example of nuclear weapons in the Forties. We might be at that stage in the next few years when it comes to AI.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even more alarming, Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology ran a simulation<\/a> in which the U.S. missile detection system\u2019s reliance on AI leads to hot war, potentially with nuclear weapons. They created a scenario in which the detection system interprets unusual atmospheric conditions \u201cas a series of missile launches, and the system fires interceptors in response.\u201d Then: \u201cAs the interceptors reach the stratosphere, China\u2019s early-warning radar picks them up. Believing they are under attack, Chinese commanders order a retaliatory strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

A technological glitch could spell disaster for humanity.<\/p>\n

This is a remarkably similar scenario to the infamous 1983 incident<\/a> when a Soviet warning system detected an incoming missile strike from the U.S. Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov believed the warning to be a false alarm and rejected firing nuclear weapons at the U.S. Thus, human intervention prevented nuclear war and saved millions of lives. In a system run by AI, the bombs would have launched.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

With Eric Schmidt as a central figure of the Pentagon\u2019s new AI arms race, the U.S. is preparing for a devastating war with China. While a hot war between the two superpowers seems unlikely for now, the creation of this technology in itself creates the possibility \u2014\u00a0a danger that must be stopped before it evolves to threaten humanity.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

Dan Cohen is the Washington DC correspondent for <\/em>Behind The Headlines. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – mintpressnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Sep 2021 – As the Pentagon drives a hi-tech arms race to maintain its global military superiority, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the man at the center. How the U.S. empire\u2019s drive to control the world using Silicon Valley technology creates the possibility of a devastating war. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":195782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[867,1161,1188,1733,2386,1009,1126,1050,2674,2462,769,112,1010,461,70],"class_list":["post-195780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-race","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-autonomous-weapons","tag-big-tech","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-intelligent-weapons","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-military-supremacy","tag-pentagon","tag-silicon-valley","tag-technology","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}