China's President Xi Jinping (C) talks with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi before a meeting with Bangladesh's President Abdul Hamid (not in picture), at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 8, 2014. REUTERS/Parker Song/Pool
Stephen Chen, SCMP: Artificial intelligence, immune to fear or favour, is helping to make China’s foreign policy
The programme draws on a huge amount of data, with information ranging from cocktail-party gossip to images taken by spy satellites, to contribute to strategies in Chinese diplomacy.
Attention, foreign-policy makers. You will soon be working with, or competing against, a new type of robot with the potential to change the game of international politics forever.
Diplomacy is similar to a strategic board game. A country makes a move, the other(s) respond. All want to win.
Artificial intelligence is good at board games. To get the game started, the system analyses previous play, learns lessons from defeats or even repeatedly plays against itself to devise a strategy that can be never thought of before by humans.
It has defeated world champions in chess and Go. More recently, it has won at no-limit Texas Hold’em poker, an “imperfect information game” in which a player does not have access to all information at all times, a situation familiar in the world of diplomatic affairs.
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WNU Editor: Diplomacy is primarily a human to human interaction. But can a computer program with access to massive data bases give an advantage to one side when it comes to making diplomatic decisions? I can only speak from my own personal experience when I was a diplomat in China.... and my answer is no. Diplomats are given guidelines and objectives to follow, and we try our best to fulfil them. How we accomplish this is by working with our counterparts to find common ground on issues that are important to us. I did not need a computer/AI system to do my work. I always had a very good idea on what would succeed, and what would not, before walking into a room to negotiate a business/trade agreement. And the reason why I had a good idea on what would succeed and what would not is because I had already spent years eating meals, drinking tea/beer/and hard-stuff, exchanging gifts, and getting to know who my Chinese counterparts were before we even sat down to discuss business. Now can a computer/AI program do that .... nope.
9 comments:
Reminds me of a sci fi book I read a couple years ago where people involved in business or diplomatic negotiations would utilize an implant known as an Empathy Shunt. Basically it blocked emotions, empathy in particular.
A few readers here (Fr./Bp./Az.) have the device turned on all the time when they comment^^
Can I hit 0 for operator?
Wnu. What you suggest is -not- how the Chinese would use AI for "diplomacy". Instead, think how the Chinese would use big data and surveillance and scores of terabyte of data on you and ne obtained by legal and illegal means to "make you see their ways". In short: blackmail/kompromat on an automated level, giving the diplomat or interrogator (there will be lots of synergies) insights into not only dirt on you on a fingertip, but it'll also tell them your psych profile and give guidance on how to turn you into a Chinese asset.
Meanwhile, at Google in San Francisco, freaking kale munchers sign petitions to tie the government's back when it comes to AI. We will lose this game and lose it badly if they don't start understanding that we have no choice but be prepared for weaponised data/dirt on you. AI will be a game changer in this field.
AI is a good escape when you don't know how to handle a human problem.
AI is being worked into everything, now, from business to intelligence to military applications. Why should diplomacy be an exception? And why should we think only the Chinese are doing it?
So is a 9mm. What's your point?
AI is still not something that everyone can do. And of course there's lots of different levels of AI. And while we're talking narrow AI here, it's a multi year if not multi decade project to get it right and make that extortion and blackmailing, I mean diplomacy, work for the Chinese. The AI has to be trained on and ne able to constantly acquire new data on you. Talking Internet cables on the sea floor being listened in. Satellite coms listened in. That all is not something let's say Turkey could do. They just don't have the physical access/equipment to operate and hack at that level. Plus,training and verification of data and outputs, at the beginning at least, remains a human job. Self-training AI does not work in all circumstances, you know? So yeah. China's new diplomatic push will be to extort you based on any data they can get on you-using AI. Whatever you download, whatever you search for, your financial records, where you move every day (your gps in your phone), hacking of your Alexa at home and listening in and filtering out the valuable data, eg when you fight with your spouse over something. Imagine a beast with a million tentacles able to research you. Looking at your old Facebook data even though you thought you deleted it. Everything. That's why we need our own AI to counter this. Everyone can be turned, if the material/dirt on you just triggers the right emotional response.
This reminds me that in Japan someone is working on AI capable to make creative works. To create anime/cartoon, film, novels, creative writings such dialogues, music and visual art without human support.
This is a nightmare scenario for me.
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