By Dragan Vitorovic
The development of Athens has raised the fears in Sparta of who will have dominance in ancient Greek dominion, resulting in the inability of city-states to understand each other, making the war inevitable. This phenomenon is famously known as the Thucydides’ trap, having the challenging and incumbent power against each other, ready to start a violent clash.
So far, in the last five centuries, the global system was 16 times in a decisive transition of power, and in only four cases the power shifted from one state to another without extremely destructive developments.
The global system has become increasingly fragmented. Additionally, the geopolitical recession slowly remodels the politico-economic landscape, while the multipolarity has brought new geopolitical disturbances. Therefore, it would be possible to discuss not one, but many Thucydides’ traps, smaller in magnitude, but equally challenging. States are competing today not only on land, air, sea, and space but also in the cyber domain. The Big Powers find much more difficult to fine-tune their strategies, given so many interrelated policy questions.
The fluid combative relationship between the US and China is often depicted as the new Cold War, mainly manifested through the asymmetrical policies in technology and infrastructure development. The development of 5G network and Chinese Belt and Road Initiative may be the most recognizable projects, that are well-covered in media.
The US efforts to cut China off from the innovative technologies are much more extensive than the frequently mentioned Huawei issue, which has quickly become the symbol of escalation. Recently, 143 Chinese companies are banned from the use of US-based technology, in times when China has reached 80% of the United States’ research and development resources. In infrastructural domain, the Belt and Road Initiative is trying to encompass a significant portion of the global economy, allowing China to enhance its “go-out” strategy.
In both cases, China is too big to fall, and the United States must balance between the slowing China down and assisting it in the reshaping of the global landscape, which seems a highly challenging task.
There is one more dimension of dispute that often remains sidelined, and it is Artificial Intelligence. The AI is still a relatively new tool in policymaking on a strategic scale, however, China is demanding full recognition as the superpower in this domain, insisting on the preferential participation in the future global regulatory bodies.
The swift technological developments and the possible weaponization of Artificial Intelligence, including the world dominance in this field, can hardly have the immediate consequences which may lead to open war. However, the possible Balkanization of the cyberspace and the fortification of the national technology vendors do not instill the optimism in policy-making circles.
The Global Positions and the Tech Race
According to the Government Artificial Intelligence Readiness for 2019, compiled and published by Oxford Insights and the International Development Research Centre, measuring the overall AI state-capacity, China is in the 20th place, the USA holds the fourth position and the first place is taken by Singapore. The end-score is composed of 11 components, separated in the four high-end clusters: governance, data and infrastructure, public services, and government, and, finally, skills and education. Chinese overall index is 7.37, while the United States achieved a score of 8.80.
Paraphrasing the famous statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the leader in Artificial Intelligence will be in a solid position to lead globally. Other Big Powers understood that well, so the Chinese strategy to become the global hegemon in the AI until 2030 includes the application of AI for military purposes, that eventually enhances modernization of the People’s Republic Army and expansion of its regional influence.
The new technology race has already started, and the US still has the prime position, as proposed by various pundits.
Similarly, as the data should be “the new oil”, the AI is considered to become “the new electricity”, although the full potential of AI largely remains unknown to the public.
Experts argue that AI will increase the financial and economic efficiency throughout various industrial sectors, it would improve national security and significantly increase the living standards. However, the ethical debate on the application of AI is still ongoing, spreading to the other issues, such as the possible developments in a labor market, the control over sophisticated decision-making processes and the possible global power disbalance. Since there is no universal regulatory handbook of AI principles, that would be widely accepted – there are serious attempts by G20 and UN to change this situation– times ahead may be turbulent for both state and private sectors.
The dominance of the United States in the field of AI is mainly private-led and comes from corporations, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Nvidia, and Microsoft. The number of patents, the number of available investments, the most powerful AI chips technology, and the number of companies researching AI, speak in favor of the United States.
Concerning the volume of AI publications, China has taken the lead, however, the publications do not have that strong impact as the US-based research. China has intertwined the tech development with the Belt and Road Initiative, eventually pursuing the economies of scope and scale. However, BRI is a project filled with enormous levels of contingent risks.
Given the political system, the US cannot rely on the state apparatus that would divert and manage private and individual resources for the purposes of AI development, like in Chinese case, but it still has substantial competitive advantage in the mobility of researchers, developed technology hubs, the extensive human capital and diverse pool of talents. Globally speaking, the US still attracts more high-class educated researchers than any other country in the world.
The Algorithm for the Future
Although the United States is still the most advanced nation when it comes to Artificial Intelligence, Chinese intentions should be considered seriously. Chinese investments and the official policy design in the AI are rapidly expanding the playground and may pose a serious threat to Western technological dominance. Additionally, the US still does not have a coherent and structured AI strategy that would communicate the strategic intent of the world hegemon to its allies.
If Chinese intentions are to be materialized, confirming the Chinese status of AI superpower, this may bring additional global leverage in favor of Chinese technological dominion. Since China is persistently working on the proposal of an alternative global political model, potential technological dominance can enhance the positive perception of the international community towards China, contributing to the Chinese end-goal. Despite humanity still being without the master algorithm, Big Powers eventually may succeed in designing it. It remains to be seen which Big Power will do it first.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Credit: Reuters/Stringer