US issues AI national security memo to avoid ‘strategic surprise’ by China and cut risks
Washington is ‘willing to engage in dialogue’ with China ‘to better understand risks and counter misperceptions’ about AI, says official
US President Joe Biden has signed a national security memorandum to guide US military and intelligence agencies on the risks of AI and its responsible use, with the aim of improving America’s edge against rivals such as China while minimising associated dangers.
“This is our nation’s first ever strategy for harnessing the power and managing the risks of AI to advance our national security,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced at the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday.
“We know that China is building its own technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure that won’t protect sensitive data that can enable mass surveillance and censorship that can spread misinformation, and that can make countries vulnerable to coercion,” he said.
He warned that the US has “to compete, to provide a more attractive path, ideally before countries go too far down an untrusted road from which it can be expensive and difficult to return”.
Sullivan said the US government was “fully capable of managing this healthy tension, as long as we’re honest and clear-eyed about it, and we have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years ahead”.
