Super-intelligent AI is still a way off but artificial intelligence already
exceeds human capacity in many growing areas, sparking huge expectations about AI benefits and also fear and concern. Both the United States, the AI
leader, and China, which is rapidly creating
massive applications, should shoulder greater responsibilities for what needs to be done.
But before we can talk about the future, we need to consider whether we are going to do it together or as enemies. Worsening
US-China tensions cannot but have an impact on how we are going to deal with the challenges down the road. Will we work to make technology symbiotic to humans, help the world avoid technological risks and ensure technological advances to make our civilisations prosper? Or will we go our separate ways and use the technology to undermine, even hurt, the other side?
The US and Soviet Union went through many crises during the cold war, some threatening to doom mankind, before arriving at an arrangement for self-constraint and coexistence. The world today is more complicated and there is more at stake. Do we need a bigger crisis to help us find the right path? Can China and the US resolve their differences and coexist peacefully, or
decouple, as some in Washington seek, and therefore tear the world apart?
After three decades of rapid industrialisation, China now finds itself among the top echelon in advanced technology and is increasingly aware of its rule-making responsibilities. The challenge with AI is for the government to meet the need for proper governance as soon as an application is developed. Beijing has therefore developed a policy that encourages advancement of industries while also providing guidelines.
Its AI governance expert committee, set up by the Ministry of Science and Technology in February, has released
eight AI governance principles. They are harmony and human-friendliness, fairness and justice, inclusiveness and sharing, respect for privacy, security and controllability, shared responsibility, open collaboration, and agile governance.
To put these principles into practice, the government will set up 20 pilot zones by 2023, for testing and collecting feedback.
Other measures include offering open platforms to encourage enterprises to formulate their own standards. Research and development projects will also be measured by the eight-point principle.
It has also moved to ensure cyber safety. In the personality rights section of the Civil Code adopted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee in August, there is particular emphasis on the
protection of personal information: for example, the collection and use of personal information requires consent from either the person or the person’s guardian. It also specifically protects personal biometric data.
Another important development is the Provisions on Cyber Protection of Children’s Personal Information, which came into effect on October 1.
AI research is a global collaboration, with researchers sharing ideas and building on each other’s work. With multinational AI platforms expanding globally, countries need to agree on ethical norms and industry rules. China is open to
discussing and working with other countries on this. Its efforts in AI governance need to be connected to similar efforts in other parts of the world, the US in particular.
Neither China nor the US can monopolise the world’s technological progress. If they complement each other, the prospects for AI technology are brighter; if they stop working with each other, both will suffer and the general progress will pay a price. It would be self-destructive to allow geopolitical and a zero-sum competitive philosophy to dominate relations.
To improve perceptions and reduce misunderstandings, China can be more proactive in communicating with the international community, such as making available official translations of major policy documents, and addressing any misunderstandings with timely explanations.
Take for example American concerns about China’s AI ambitions, which
ignited the strategic rivalry over scientific and technological advances. The concern stems in part from a misreading of the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan issued in Beijing in July 2017.
The plan’s targets are: first, for Chinese AI technological development to reach an advanced level by 2020; second, to achieve a breakthrough in basic theory and reach a leading level by 2025 in some parts of the technology and applications; and third, to move to the forefront in theory, technology and application and become a major innovation centre by 2030.
Note that China merely wants to become one of the world’s innovation centres, not the only centre, which is a reasonable expectation.
The US view of hi-tech as an area of strategic rivalry is not a perspective shared by China. While there is competition, the reality in the field is a kind of constructive and strategic
mutual dependency. According to Clarivate Analytics, from 2013 to 2017, the number of AI-related papers co-authored by Chinese and Americans grew the fastest, reaching 4,000 in five years.
American companies lead in technologies (especially in
semiconductors), and American universities are ahead of the global pack. But China has the largest user market and therefore provides faster iterative upgrading of algorithms.
Both countries can benefit tremendously in a partnership, unless the US forces a decoupling and pushes China to find
other partners or to develop its
own solutions – which would also weaken US companies’ position and influence.
So for China, the preferred outcome is an interdependent community with a shared future, international conversations to encourage collaboration, and common rules for safe, reliable and responsible AI. As Chinese President Xi Jinping said, China is willing to work with the international community to create an age of intelligence and share the achievements of the intelligence.
Fu Ying is China’s former vice-minister of foreign affairs and chairperson of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. This is an edited version of her remarks at a sub-forum on understanding the AI challenge to humanity, held during the New Economic Forum in Beijing on November 21
