During his opening remarks before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence start-up OpenAI, confirmed what many-a-Luddite have long feared: AI is here to stay, and its proliferation is unavoidable.
Expressing his belief that AI could be used to empower humanity but without guide rails, Altman said its unregulated use could wreak havoc: “OpenAI was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of our lives, but also that it creates serious risks.”
AI, like every other major technological development, presents us with major questions about man’s relationship with nature and how we interface with reality. AI is no exception to this; if anything, it further complicates man’s relationship with the metaphysical, but that’s for another time. In terms of our immediate physical reality, beyond questions of societal redundancy through economic displacement, artificial intelligence presents challenges about the rapidly evolving geopolitical conditions the U.S. is not prepared to adequately address.
In particular, the ongoing digital arms race exposes the U.S. as lacking a cohesive national vision for the integration and utilization of artificial intelligence when compared to Red China’s national strategy.
China is Pursuing Global AI Dominance
China poses the greatest threat to American interests abroad — to insist otherwise is either ignorant or naive. In 2016, U.S. Air Force officials and the Obama White House warned that the Chinese Communist Party had an extremely well-funded and methodological approach
