Introduction to translation

In this article, Patrick Tucker, editor and technology correspondent for Defense One, who specializes in data, complexity, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, monitors China's increasing pursuit of information, and growing concern in the United States about China's advantage as a result of its use of quantum The huge amount of data that the spread of its products and technology companies will give it.

translation text

As Chinese telecommunications and technology products and services spread across the land, and Western companies scramble to access the vast Chinese market, China is gaining new packets of data that will help it quickly and efficiently engineer its new AI capabilities, according to Michael Studman. Director of Intelligence for the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

In addition to the financial benefits that Chinese companies derive from the growing market for their sales of technological goods, there are central intelligence and military benefits that the Chinese government will have at the same time, as Chinese information technology "spreads all over the world ... and at the same time is made available to Beijing," Stodman said. An opportunity to control a larger set of data, which actually enables it to refine the machine’s ability to learn at a faster pace” (by training its machines and programs by entering those huge amounts of data to them, as artificial intelligence is based primarily on machine learning from that data and human information ).

Michael Studman, director of intelligence for the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

Stodman here acknowledges one of the fundamental facts of the new age of artificial intelligence. Like artificial neural networks, AI methodologies have been around for a long time, but the recent availability of large amounts of data and cloud computing capabilities at the enterprise level has greatly increased the importance of AI. To be clear, the difference here corresponds to the difference between a self-driving car crossing a room in five hours (like the Stanford Wagon robot, the first forerunners of self-driving cars introduced in 1979), and operating a fleet of fully-capable autonomous vehicles mobilizing constant updates via the private cloud With it, it moves huge distances without the slightest problem.

If someone sells more self-driving cars that can collect data on conditions, obstacles, and so on, that data will contribute to the development of all the products they produce with just a simple software update.

For this reason, access to massive packets of information puts companies like Google and Amazon in a strong position to market their machine learning products and services.

But what applies to big tech companies also applies to nation states to the same extent.

lust for chinese data

Today, China already controls the operation of massive networks of surveillance cameras (known as “CCTV” for “closed circuit television”), which helps it develop facial recognition algorithms, and China has already used them to track and control Uighur Muslims , as well as with other ethnic minorities (the first time a government has used surveillance cameras in this way to serve racial politics, according to The New York Times, which obtained that information from five people familiar with this file in China who did not reveal their identities for fear of government persecution Chinese them).

But that is not the kind of data that would give China an advantage on the battlefield against the United States. China's growing share of the Internet search market and the cloud services market gives Chinese technology companies open access to data on various types of consumers around the world, data that enables its owner to predict many things, from health maladies to economic turmoil to civil strife (as a writer explains The article himself is in his 2014 book, "The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Step?").

For example, while the US companies "Amazon", "Microsoft" and "Google" are the largest companies providing cloud services in the world, the company "Alibaba" (based in China) represents 6% of the global cloud services market, according to research conducted by the company. Synergy Research last February, and another Chinese technology company, Tencent, has a 2% share of the global market.

These Chinese companies have long said that they operate independently of the government, a key call they make because many of them want to be listed on foreign stock markets.

In March, however, China passed new legislation requiring Chinese tech giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, to share their vast stock of data with the Chinese government.

data war

Western tech companies wanting to do business with China will also have to consider China's 2017 cybersecurity law that requires companies to store the data they collect inside China, where China will have access to it. This puts companies such as "Tesla" in a difficult position, as they need to be present in the Chinese market to enhance their market value, and "Tesla" last May launched a new facility in China to store data from its sales and services inside the country, despite concerns What Elon Musk, the CEO of the company, expressed about data privacy in China (in conjunction with his statements, China, in turn, had banned the entry of Tesla cars into its military facilities and restricted the use of state and military employees to company cars for fear that their data would be used by He accepted "Tesla" in favor of the United States).

“Whoever has the largest amount of data and will take the initiative before others (using it) will learn faster than everyone else, and then will gain informational superiority over time,” said Stodman, noting that the spread of Chinese technological products and what is available (to China) intelligence when Chinese companies are invited to invest. It will give the Chinese a huge advantage in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning... and that the United States should be very vigilant about what all the details of the current scene will turn out to be."

___________________________________

Translation: Noor Khairy

This article is translated from Defense One and does not necessarily reflect the Meydan website.