AI Arms Race: Perspective

AI Arms Race: Perspective

Question: The AI arms race is steadily building up. Comment.

- Weaponised artificial intelligence or real life terminator machines are the reason why the AI arms race is slowly picking up

- Intelligent robots are advanced so much so that scientists and thinkers including Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk have called for an end to arms race in weaponised AI

- Weaponised AI arms race has been viewed as the third warfare revolution

- This is a revolution following gunpowder and nuclear arms

- Drones controlled by non state actors or those who make judgement calls are very different

- Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without any human supervision

- Pre-established criteria are used for killing but they cannot assess the distinction and proportionality which are the bedrock of laws of war

- Once these lethal weapons are in use, they cannot be reversed and unlike nuclear weapons, they will easily be manufactured on a large scale

- Procurement of raw materials for construction of these AI machines is not easy

- Lethal robotics can spur the chemical and biological warfare

- Governments under the UN auspices, about lethal autonomous weapons in 1995 and cluster bombs since 2006

- India must ban research into weaponised AI to avoid getting caught in the arms race

- Killer robots are s subject of much discussion and the UN is considering ban on specific kinds of autonomous weapons

- Experts are also calling for specific ban on use of AI to manage weapons beyond meaningful human control

- AI researchers also do not want their field tarnished

- Future of technology needs to become more human, Stephen Hawking has asserted

- Humans undergoing slow biological evolution cannot compete with AI

- On the plus side, computation has achieved a lot more for socioeconomics in apps such as health

- Whether these machines can outwit man remains the moot question

Facts and Stats

- As inputs to AI progress, AI funding, quality-adjusted researcher years, and computing power are more relevant than calendar years of research.

- AI research constitutes about 10% of the research being done in the field of Computer Science

- Famous prizes for AI research include ACM Turing Award, Nevanlinna Prize and more