Si bien existe un debate en curso sobre qui\u00e9n est\u00e1 a la cabeza en la carrera de la inteligencia artificial, est\u00e1 claro que tanto EEUU como China, adem\u00e1s de los ej\u00e9rcitos de todo el mundo, ven la ventaja cr\u00edtica que esta tecnolog\u00eda podr\u00eda proporcionar en caso de conflicto. Presentado por primera vez en 2017, el Plan de Desarrollo de IA de Nueva Generaci\u00f3n de Beijing estableci\u00f3 el objetivo de China de convertirse en ” el l\u00edder mundial ” en IA para 2030, y est\u00e1 claro que este objetivo se extiende a los asuntos militares.<\/p>\n
While there is an\u00a0ongoing, lively debate<\/a>\u00a0about who\u2019s ahead in the artificial intelligence race, it\u2019s clear that both the US and China, in addition to militaries the world over, see the critical advantage the technology could provide in the event of a conflict. In the op-ed below, Georgetown researcher Ryan Fedasiuk explains what he and his colleagues discovered about China\u2019s AI push through public records, and how it might reveal a couple strategic weaknesses.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n For the first time on record, earlier this year an artificial intelligence system\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0beat one of the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s (PLA) top fighter pilots in a simulated dogfight. Chinese state media\u00a0hailed the achievement<\/a>\u00a0as a watershed moment in the country\u2019s military modernization. But almost as significant as the event itself was the fact that it came just months after the US military had achieved\u00a0the same milestone<\/a>.<\/p>\n For years, experts have\u00a0written<\/a>\u00a0of China\u2019s plan to wield AI for battlefield advantage, but\u00a0cited<\/a>\u00a0US advantages in\u00a0hardware<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0workforce<\/a>\u00a0development as enduring sources of US strength.<\/p>\n As tensions mount between the United States and China, and some experts\u00a0warn<\/a>\u00a0of an impending crisis over Taiwan, US policymakers and defense planners should understand the kinds of AI systems already available to the Chinese military and take steps to defend the United States\u2019 edge.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0for Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), my coauthors and I sifted through 21,000 equipment contracts published by PLA units and state-owned defense companies in 2020. Nearly 350 records in our dataset were related to AI systems and equipment, providing an extraordinarily detailed, entirely open-source view of China\u2019s efforts to build an \u201cintelligentized\u201d force.<\/p>\n AI is the foundation of the PLA\u2019s mission to become a \u201cworld-class<\/a>\u201d military capable of rivaling the United States. First unveiled in 2017, Beijing\u2019s\u00a0New Generation AI Development Plan<\/a>\u00a0established China\u2019s goal to become \u201cthe world leader<\/a>\u201d in AI by 2030 \u2014 and it is clear that this objective extends to military affairs.<\/p>\n Indeed, many of the AI projects identified in our study are explicitly focused on degrading and countering systems at the heart of the US military\u2019s\u00a0Joint Warfighting Concept<\/a>, using techniques like\u00a0adaptive radar jamming<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0vulnerability fuzzing<\/a>. Research papers and textbooks from China\u2019s\u00a0defense universities<\/a>\u00a0even discuss using machine learning systems to counter specific US drone swarm projects like\u00a0Locust<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Gremlins<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the PLA is backing up its ambitious AI development goals with significant investment. Despite the several-hundred-billion-dollar difference in the\u00a0topline budgets<\/a>\u00a0of the US and Chinese militaries, we estimate that both countries are investing about the same amount in AI for military use \u2014 in the\u00a0low billions<\/a>\u00a0of dollars each year. Between April and December 2020, more than one in 20 public contracts awarded by the PLA\u2019s main service branches were related to AI or \u201cintelligent\u201d equipment. These projects include all manner of autonomous vehicles, surveillance systems, training simulators, and battlefield decision support software.<\/p>\n In particular, the PLA is investing in AI capabilities meant to jam, blind, and hack the C4ISR systems that bind US assets together. Dozens of the Chinese military contracts in our study are for AI systems used in\u00a0cognitive electronic warfare<\/a>. Throughout 2020, PLA units and state-backed research institutions also awarded contracts for \u201cmicrowave reconnaissance jamming drones\u201d and \u201celectromagnetic weapon\u201d payloads that can be attached to swarms of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and flown into enemy airspace. One textbook assigned to Chinese electronic warfare operators likens the US military\u2019s battlefield information networks to the\u00a0human nervous system<\/a>: \u201cOnce the \u2018tendons and veins\u2019 or \u2018blood vessels\u2019 are cut off, people will be paralyzed or even killed.\u201d<\/p>\n Moreover, the PLA Navy hopes that AI will compensate for its longstanding disadvantages in undersea warfare. Since 2015, Chinese research institutes have initiated hundreds of autonomous undersea vehicle research programs, and have made steady progress in foundational technologies like battery life and deep-sea communications. In a potential crisis over Taiwan, AI-based systems could extend the PLA Navy\u2019s undersea reconnaissance operations well beyond the first island chain, and cheap, autonomous platforms could prove useful for mine-laying or anti-submarine warfare.<\/p>\n Despite the PLA\u2019s significant progress in adopting AI-enabled systems, however, there are at least two clear vulnerabilities in its blueprint to build an \u201cintelligentized\u201d force.<\/p>\n First, while Chinese military leaders plan to exploit weaknesses in US sensor and communication networks, it is not clear how they plan to build resilient, cloud-based networks of their own. PLA officers often write that the US military is susceptible to information manipulation and data poisoning, even calling data integrity \u201cthe Achilles\u2019 heel<\/a>\u201d of the US joint all-domain command and control strategy.<\/p>\n But in a potential conflict, the PLA itself would also likely struggle to ensure the integrity of data used to train its own AI systems \u2014 to say nothing of the inherent\u00a0fragility<\/a>\u00a0of AI-based computer vision and object recognition systems. None of the 350 unclassified Chinese military contracts in our study focus on building resilient networks or secure datasets.<\/p>\n To mitigate the threat posed by Chinese military AI systems, US defense planners should boost investment in counter-autonomy and adversarial AI research that exploits Chinese system vulnerabilities, at the same time they shore up the\u00a0robustness<\/a>\u00a0of US AI systems.<\/p>\n Second, China\u2019s \u201cintelligentization\u201d strategy is entirely predicated on\u00a0access to AI chips<\/a>\u00a0designed by US companies and manufactured in Taiwan and South Korea. The supply of these high-end microelectronics, however, is far from guaranteed. In fact, the United States and its allies have already\u00a0adopted several measures<\/a>\u00a0to starve Chinese\u00a0military companies<\/a>\u00a0of the chips required to train advanced machine learning models.<\/p>\n But to effectively slow Chinese military progress on AI, US policymakers should continue to scale up investment in the organizations meant to regulate technology outflow, like the Department of Commerce\u2019s Office of Export Enforcement; and crack down on third-party intermediaries who supply the Chinese military and defense industry with US-made equipment.<\/p>\n While US leaders should not dismiss the Chinese military\u2019s progress in AI, there are clear vulnerabilities in its blueprint for \u201cintelligentized\u201d warfare. By striking an appropriate balance between promoting innovation at home and preventing the leakage of US technology abroad, the United States can keep its edge in military AI.<\/p>\n Ryan Fedasiuk (@RyanFedasiuk) is a Research Analyst at Georgetown University\u2019s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (@CSETGeorgetown), focused on military applications of AI, and China\u2019s efforts to acquire foreign technology.<\/em><\/p>\n