Yin and Yang of AI Imperialism

THERE is a real race going on over artificial intelligence with various nations vying for primacy.

- SRINATH SRIDEVAN

At the recent World AI Conference in Shanghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called for a global governance framework built upon consensus. Meanwhile, the US government's approach is on its website: "The US is in a race to achieve global dominance in AI. Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set the global standards and reap broad economic and security benefits."

Both nations seek to dominate, but while China seeks to be at the head of a consensus, the US seeks leadership based on individualism. This is the yin and yang of AI imperialism.

At the individual level, some of us seek comfort in saying that we have seen many technological advances in the past, and that AI too is another such. But the transformative potential of AI should not be underestimated. The power of the present-day human to undertake intellectual activity with the aid of technology is superior to any in history.

At the collective level, control over AI regulations is seen as a key to global dominance. The US and EU have long recognised this along with China. Though neither the EU nor China has brazenly declared that their goal in regulation is global dominance, it is the inexorable path control over a transformative technology takes.

Today's tussle shares eerie similarities with that over trade routes in the 16th and 17th centuries. While we Indians remained content, the nations that would soon be global trading powers were quickly grabbing control of the routes. In more recent decades, control over technology and basic scientific research gave the US a pre-eminence that endures.