AI alliances have begun; they need a nudge.

In 2017, China encountered a serious problem. A humiliation so serious that Chairman Xi Jinping reorganized his long-term strategy for China’s success. China lost a board game. The game, Go, is essentially China. Its complexity stems from its simplicity. One player, using white stones, surrounds his opponent’s black stones on a square grid. While it sounds more like connect-four than anything else, it’s a prized cultural display in much of Asia, held up next to martial arts and calligraphy as human artistry incarnate. The world Go Champion, Lee Sedol, lost 1–5 to Google’s AlphaGo. This project, created by a team from London, learned only by playing itself. All of the famous human masters of the game, with all their wit and artfulness, were rendered powerless against a self-taught neural network. Its creativity and intuition stunned and scared the tens of millions who watched the event, yet Americans didn’t notice. In large part because nobody here knows or cares about Go.

Little did Americans know, this was perhaps the first shot fired in an international arms race. Welcome to the first (and [DEAR GOD] hopefully last) AI war.

Modern artificial intelligence is a relatively new breakthrough. It has existed in some laboratory forms for decades, but thanks to the internet, better parts and software, along with increased funding, this technology has found itself central to a revolution.

What makes AI this centerpiece? Think of this conflict less like the expansion of nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War and more like the Manhattan Project itself: a shoring of brain power. While normal computers work like calculators; brute force machines that undergo a series of basic calculations, artificial intelligence works more like a human mind with a series of artificial neurons. The outcome allows for the automation of complex tasks like driving, language processing, and constructing music playlists tailored to your tastes. Even ten years ago, these tasks were uniquely human. Today, you’re better off trusting algorithms.

As of 2019, many nations invest heavily in this technology. The Made in China 2025 initiative set a plan for China to become the world leader in AI by 2030. The European Union also set high goals for AI, putting aside $2.5 billion euros for the technology while also fostering a culture of shared research, cooperation, and ethical growth. In America, AI recently received a $2 billion dollar boost on top of its existing $2 billion dollar fund. Even Trump signed an Executive Order, The American AI Initiative committing to innovation.

Does anyone see the problem here? Waze was invented in Israel, yet the world benefits. Chinese solar panel research means cheaper energy in the US too. These national initiatives are promising, but we mustn’t mistake this task as a nationalistic race to the top. IP and data hoarding drive this isolationism. The consequences of isolationist AI progress are immense. From the disruption of labor to technological class inequality, useful applications of American technologies are useful to people in the Ghana, Bolivia, and India as well.

So what? You are likely asking. We can invent things in the US and sell them to whichever country we want! The best way to express this issue is to tell a story…

2030: China, being the excellent tech power it is, creates a sickness screening phone app. It takes one look at you and recommends treatment options, local doctors, and even organizes a diet to help you overcome your ailment. This AI explodes around the world because everyone can use cheap medicine. Soon, however, it becomes clear that the Chinese government knows everything about the health of every country in the world. They even preemptively send specific vaccines and drugs to countries before they declare an epidemic. As it turns out, this Chinese technology is made for Chinese people. Meaning, its views on privacy are wholly inappropriate in the western world, the Islamic world, even the cultures of neighboring nations. Corporations like Tencent and Huawei work closely with the Chinese government and acquiesce to whatever information the Republic needs. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, this software is so good at what it does that nobody really cares about the privacy implications. As more Chinese products are offered, the world effectively surrenders to the Chinese digital worldview due to convenience.

This cross-cultural technological dilemma could play out between American technologies and an Islamic regime, Russian technology disseminated to Europe, or Israeli technology in Palestine. While great work has been done in AI ethics and fairness, in these cases, AI is like a child influenced by the culture he grew up with. A stranger in a strange land.

This issue has implications in privacy, racial or sexual discrimination, national security and aspects we have zero understanding of today. We are a globalized world, but even in this endeavor, our instinct is to behave tribally. US, Chinese, or Russian dominance cannot be anyone’s end goal.

In a far future scenario in which one nation creates a truly transcendent AI that manipulates humanity in mind shattering ways, are you comfortable with an AI that follows Sharia Law? How about an AI based entirely on Marxism or Finnish socialism? What if libertarians get together and implement AIyn Rand? These brush-strokes are clearly too broad. Human tribalism is responsible for enormous suffering. This is not a theater we can allow that man-made folly to flourish.

How do we appease this monster? The Partnership on AI was created in 2016. Founded by Google, IBM, Apple, Amazon and others. With over 80 groups involved today, its main goals are addressing issues of safety and transparency, labor impacts, and societal good. Last October, the Chinese search giant Baidu added its name to this project. As Baidu is among the “Big Three” Chinese tech powers with Huawei and Tencent, this is enormous progress.

However, it’s not entirely clear what The Partnership on AI has accomplished. A short trip to their “Our Work” page offers only thematic pillars. The “actions” they tout all begin with words like “Engaging… Enabling… Learning.” There are no joint projects to point towards. It’s essentially a scholarship fund. After three years, we lack any tangible jewel of AI collaboration, and that is somewhat alarming.

The US has a rather clear path forward here. As of 2019, our tech giants make us the clear leader in the race. Instead of falling into protectionism, we should export whatever we can. We should begin by working closely with Europe, which we closely ally with already, (see: AlphaGo.) We ought to establish a borderless exchange of technological research. This is not to say that all intellectual property related to AI should be public domain, but the trade, share, and international use of new AI must be encouraged by the private and public sector alike. This would be accomplished by encouraging European companies to open offices in the US, gaining access to our vast AI knowledge. The EU should offer benefits for American research to take place abroad too. International conferences bring the world of AI closer. We need an organization in which international teams create humanitarian systems to implement across the world. In topics like agriculture, climate or education, these applications improve lives regardless of nationality.

Sooner than later, China may find the best way to influence the world is to work in an open, honest, and bipartisan way. That is incumbent on the US to make collaboration alluring. An AI blockade, on the other hand, would cause immense damage. The US policy towards Huawei shows that tech sanctioning is in full use today. If this trend continues for useful AI programs, those on either side will be barred from life-changing, if not life-saving technologies. This is what globalization has to look like in the coming generation. In this world where information moves instantly, walls can only slow progress, encourage incompatibility, and further stratify freedom.