Cooperation in a bipolar world
Taking into account China’s growing influence around the world, discussions often alluded to an uncomfortable truth: In order to avoid catastrophe, even rivals must cooperate, which is why participants, particularly at roundtables in Europe, were keen to identify a number of areas that could lower the tensions and help build trust among antagonistic stakeholders. By emphasizing the global nature of the challenges at hand, French leaders pointed to lessons learned from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. Allegedly, consultations at the expert level could help establish a universally agreed baseline on the harms versus the benefits of the AI revolution. Such an acknowledged picture of the total effects from modern technologies might then inform policy makers as to the needed regulatory steps to minimize negative externalities, while maximizing potential benefits. Individual countries and multilateral organizations such as the Group of Twenty (G20), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, or regional organizations like the European Union could then all start from the same set of agreed facts concerning AI and the various aspects of the emergence of modern technologies—and coordinate on needed social, economic, data, and ethical protections.
Cooperation, however, needs to begin at the domestic level by building trust and confidence first between governments, companies, and consumers on AI and related technologies. In many cases, the public trust does not exist, due to concerns over job insecurity, privacy, and the future of work. To avoid such negative public perceptions, governments and private companies should share their failures as much as their successes in employing AI. Regulatory efforts to build public trust will require experimentation, and lessons learned would certainly benefit from comparisons with attempts elsewhere. Such sharing, across multiple efforts, could then help establish international guidelines to define the rules of the game, prevent escalating conflicts, and enable reconciling social needs with uses of the new technologies.
With the enactment of binding rules for all players, collaboration could further help erase fears of falling behind in the global AI race. Such an approach was advocated particularly by European roundtable participants, while Chinese and US discussants highlighted a level playing field as more important for tempering the ongoing competition. Interestingly enough, Chinese officials that contributed to this project were open to developing regulatory frameworks, though many Western counterparts believed that they could stifle innovation and hamper economic growth.
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Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Third parties don’t want to choose sides
Many worry about what could follow Pax Americana, especially since providing global security has always been a costly endeavor. A European Union (EU) approach was that Europe could serve as a bridge between the United States and China, somehow mitigating the ever-intensifying rivalry.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Europe’s hurdles
Economists and technologists worried about Europe’s ability to reconcile privacy restrictions with a thriving tech economy. The logic is simple: In order to keep up, companies must be able to train AI systems with accessible data, which is why the EU has become more attuned to the need to facilitate data flows.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
China’s ambiguity
Speaking more broadly, interlocutors in Beijing emphasized that international cooperation has always been important to China’s economic development, alluding to the fact that the most successful innovations and AI advances often come from international research collaborations.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Worries about AI externalities
There is no doubt that emerging technologies have gained significant importance over the last couple of years, but a sense of caution is required when it comes to the hype surrounding AI. Technologies have so far remained a tool and their applications won’t be solving all of humanity’s problems anytime soon.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
India’s quest for digital sovereignty
Similar to Europe’s “Third Way Approach,” and in order to navigate between the US and the Chinese models, India is also trying to develop a concept of digital sovereignty, all the while mitigating negative externalities of great power competition.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Technology for good
By focusing on healthcare, food security and agriculture, education, or infrastructure, global AI competition could be given a very different spin, mitigating the rivalry aspect of politics. How modern technologies should be centered on serving those broader global interests was at the core of the discussions in the roundtable focused on Africa.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
Smart partnerships for global challenges
In order to give the global AI competition a different spin and emphasize the “technology for good” approach, it would be wise to highlight organizations that focus on AI applications in healthcare, education, food security and agriculture, or infrastructure endeavors, particularly in a post-Covid-19 recovery.
GeoTech Cues by Mathew J. Burrows, Julian Mueller-Kaler
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