Artificial intelligence, immune to fear or favour, is helping to make China’s foreign policy
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
By Stephen Chen Monday, 30 July, 2018, 12:00am
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 was
never thought of before by humans.
It has defeated world champions in chess and Go. More
recently, it has won at heads-up 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.
Several prototypes of a diplomatic system using
artificial intelligence are under development in China, according to
researchers involved or familiar with the projects. One early-stage machine,
built by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is already being used by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry confirmed to the South China Morning Post
that there was indeed a plan to use AI in diplomacy.
“Cutting-edge technology, including big data and
artificial intelligence, is causing profound changes to the way people work and
live. The applications in many industries and sectors are increasing on daily
basis,” a ministry spokesman said last month.
The ministry “will actively adapt to the trend and
explore the use of emerging technology for work enhancement and improvement”.
China’s ambition to become a world leader has
significantly increased the burden and challenge to its diplomats. The “Belt
and Road Initiative”, for instance, involves nearly 70 countries with 65 per
cent of the world’s population.
The unprecedented development strategy requires up to a
US$900 billion investment each year for infrastructure construction, some in
areas with high political, economic or environmental risks.
The researchers said the AI “policymaker” was a strategic
decision support system, with experts stressing that it will be humans who will
make any final decision.
The system studies the strategy of international politics
by drawing on a large amount of data, which can contain information varying
from cocktail-party gossip to images taken by spy satellites.
When a policymaker needs to make a quick, accurate
decision to achieve a specific goal in a complex, urgent situation, the system
can provide a range of options with recommendations for the best move,
sometimes in the blink of an eye.
Dr Feng Shuai, senior fellow with the Shanghai Institutes
for International Studies, whose research focuses on AI applications, said the
technology of the AI policymaking system was already attracting attention
despite being in its early stages.
Several research teams were developing these systems,
Feng said. A conference discussing the impact of AI on diplomacy was hosted by
the University of International Business and Economics last month in Beijing,
in which researchers shared some recent progress.
“Artificial intelligence systems can use scientific and
technological power to read and analyse data in a way that humans can’t match,”
Feng said.
“Human beings can never get rid of the interference of
hormones or glucose.”
The AI policymaker, however, would be immune to passion,
honour, fear or other subjective factors. “It would not even consider the moral
factors that conflict with strategic goals,” Feng added.
Other nations are believed to be conducting similar
research into AI uses in policymaking fields, though details are not available
publicly.
But AI does have its own problems, researchers say. It
requires a large amount of data, some of which may not be immediately available
in certain countries or regions. It requires a clear set of goals, which are
sometimes absent at the start of diplomatic interaction. A system operator can
also temper the results by altering some parameters.
But the technology will find increasing application and
“further widen the gap in strategic game capabilities between countries”, Feng
said.
“If one side of the strategic game has artificial
intelligence technology, and the other side does not, then this kind of
strategic game is almost a one-way, transparent confrontation,” he said. “The
actors lacking the assistance of AI will be at an absolute disadvantage in many
aspects such as risk judgment, strategy selection, decision making and
execution efficiency, and decision-making reliability,” he said.
“The entire strategic game structure will be completely
out of balance.”
Liu Yu, an associate researcher at the Institute of
Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and who was involved
in the development of an award-winning AI war game system for the People’s
Liberation Army, said human diplomats would have difficulty winning a strategic
game against AI.
“AI can think many steps ahead of a human. It can think
deeply in many possible scenarios and come up with the best strategy,” he said.
A US Department of State spokesman said the agency had
“many technological tools” to help it make decisions. There was, however, no
specific information on AI that could be shared with the public, he said.
According to the department’s Information Technology
Strategic Plan for 2017 to 2019, American “diplomats are using powerful new
technologies to advocate policy position, promote awareness, and enhance
transparency”.
The plan stressed the importance of big data technology
as a tool to “offer more meaningful insights required for informed decision,
problem solving and risk analysis”. It did not mention artificial intelligence.
Big data and artificial intelligence are closely related
but different.
Big data technology analyses complex data sets to
generate insights, and has been widely used by many governments around the
world. The result may contain a list of pro and cons. It does not tell you what
to do.
Artificial intelligence takes it a step further. It acts
on the results. It can be an automatic stop at a traffic light, a move on a
board game, or a verdict of go or no-go for a high-speed railway connecting
Moscow and Beijing.
Fu Jingying, an associate researcher with the Institute
of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of
Sciences in Beijing, said an early version of the AI system developed by the
institute was in use in the foreign ministry.
The system was operated by the department of external
security affairs, she said. As well as dealing with security issues, the
department makes policy recommendations on the operation of China’s overseas
diplomatic missions, according to the ministry’s website.
The system, also known as geopolitical environment
simulation and prediction platform, was used to vet “nearly all foreign
investment projects” in recent years, Fu said.
The machine has access to numerous Chinese government
databases. Fu said it was equipped with artificial intelligence technology,
including deep learning and a neural network for risk assessment or prediction
of events such as political upheaval or terrorist attacks, with “encouraging
results”.
The machine is still unable to make a strategic decision
by itself, but the next generation will have the support function to do so.
The new system is “under construction”, Fu said, without
giving a date on its completion.
“The machine will never replace human diplomats. It only
provides assistance,” she added.
One challenge to the development of AI policymaker is
data sharing among Chinese government agencies. The foreign ministry, for
instance, had been unable to get some data sets it needed because of
administrative barriers, Fu said.
China is aggressively pushing AI into many sectors. The
government is building a nationwide surveillance system capable of identifying
any citizen by face within seconds. Research is also under way to introduce AI
in nuclear submarines to help commanders making faster, more accurate decision
in battle.
But in China as well as many other countries, the final
decision on significant diplomatic matters is made at the highest levels. To
what extent AI may influence decision making depends on the senior politicians’
trust and acceptance of the new technology.
Zhang Lili, a professor at China Foreign Affairs
University, said foreign-policy makers should embrace artificial intelligence
as a powerful tool that could to take their work to a new level.
“In the past, our job was done entirely by the brain,
which has limits,” he said. “AI can help us get more prepared for unexpected
events. It can help find a scientific, rigorous solution within a short time.
“But the ultimate decision will have to be made by a
human.
“This is a fundamental principle.”
Last month, in a conference on foreign affairs with
Chinese diplomats, Chinese President Xi Jinping “called for efforts to break
new ground” in diplomacy, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
Xi asked the diplomats to “formulate principles and
policies of China’s external work in a scientific way, through cool-headed
analysis of international phenomena and China’s relation with the rest of the
world”.
The diplomats must not “get lost in a complex and
changing international situation”, he warned.
Comments
Post a Comment