Security News > 2021 > March > AI Panel Urges US to Boost Tech Skills Amid China's Rise

An artificial intelligence commission led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is urging the U.S. to boost its AI skills to counter China, including by pursuing "AI-enabled" weapons - something that Google itself has shied away from on ethical grounds.

"We have to develop technology that preserves our Western values, but we have to be prepared for a world in which not everyone is doing that," said Andrew Moore, a commissioner and the head of Google Cloud AI. The group has the ear of top lawmakers from both parties, but has attracted criticism for including many members who work for tech companies with big government contracts, and who thus have a lot at stake in federal rules on emerging technology.

Congress formed the AI panel in 2018 and appointed 12 of its 15 commissioners, with the others picked by Trump's Defense and Commerce secretaries.

Excluding human rights groups and rank-and-file tech experts from the commission has led the group to more easily frame this policy issue as a "Democracy versus authoritarianism" competition against China while skirting more difficult topics, like the use of AI technologies on the U.S.-Mexico border, said Jack Poulson, a former Google researcher who now directs industry watchdog Tech Inquiry.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement Monday that the commission made useful recommendations but it should have gone further by establishing civil rights protections now, before AI systems are widely deployed by intelligence agencies and the military.

The commission asked Congress to make new laws requiring federal agencies to conduct human rights assessments of new AI systems used on Americans.

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