BEIJING (AP) – After years of phenomenal growth, China’s security and surveillance industry is now concerned about the risks posed by hackers, advances in artificial intelligence, and pressure from rival governments, prompting the U.S. and other external Emphasis is placed on reinforcing vulnerabilities to stakeholders..
The recent Security China exhibition in Beijing has put renewed emphasis on self-reliance, fighting fraud and strengthening systems against hacking, and despite researchers’ warnings, Beijing and Washington are willing to cooperate. It shows how difficult it is to get Humanity faces common risks from AI. The show comes days after China’s ruling Communist Party warned officials of the risks posed by artificial intelligence.
Looming into the four-day tournament is China’s biggest geopolitical rival, the United States. American-developed AI chatbot ChatGPT It was a frequent topic of discussion, as was the US effort to block China’s access to cutting-edge technology.
“This new technology contains great potential dangers,” said Huang Weichen, director of the Public Security Research Center of Tsinghua University. He clicked through an AI-generated presentation featuring President Barack Obama in person to explain the risks of deceptive images and videos that can now be created digitally.
“The United States has a national security strategy for the 21st century. Russia has a national security strategy. Germany has a strategy. Japan does too,” Huang said. “We in China are also working on this.”
Chinese academics are working on an “early warning system” to identify and manage potentially disruptive technologies, Fan said, adding that emerging technologies could affect China’s national security. It is said that it is creating indicators and formulas to measure the impact.
China’s AI technology has advanced rapidly in the past decade, facilitated in part by collaborations with American research institutes and technology companies. Like the United States, China’s leaders are concerned about advances in artificial intelligence.
But there are further challenges. In recent years, as geopolitical tensions have reached a fever pitch, Washington has moved to cut China’s access to American technology, encouraging Chinese tech companies to stand on their own feet.
Remarks at a conference chaired by Chinese leader Xi Jinping Last month, he urged a renewed focus on potential risks from new technologies.
“The complexity and seriousness of the national security issues facing our country have increased dramatically,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency read out the meeting. “We have to prepare for the worst extreme scenarios.”
Exhibition-goers said China needs to stand on its own by developing locally manufactured products while keeping an eye out for new developments from the West.
“Now is the age of AI. The future has arrived,” said Liu Caixia, director of China’s police research institute. “People in academia are terrified.”
“I’ve seen it in some science fiction blockbusters where there are only intelligent machines left in the world, and humans are kept like pets,” Liu said. “What attitude should I take?”
Liu’s answer was clear and consistent with China’s determination to lead in cutting-edge technology, pushing and introducing AI into new areas.
But it also reflects a contradiction between China’s technological ambitions and growing concerns about the potential social and political risks of such technologies. Chinese tech companies have been cautious with chatbots like ChatGPT, and strict censorship prohibits AI from generating politically sensitive content, for example.
But ChatGPT raises the following questions: If China rushes to adopt AI and could fall into that trap, Or will it tiptoe cautiously and risk falling behind the United States?
Across the Pacific, U.S. tech executives and policymakers are grappling with the same problem.A wave of US sanctions targets Chinese chip makers and AI firms to limit government access to cutting-edge technology. Politicians worry about China’s rise in this area.
As tensions between the United States and China reach a boiling point, Secretary of State Anthony Brinken visited Beijing this week to try to stabilize relations, saying Washington is not seeking to separate from China, but rather to “reduce risks and diversify.” ‘ only tried to assure the Chinese side that
Both sides declared the visit successful, but the Chinese government expressed dissatisfaction with US sanctionsChina’s top diplomatic official, Wang Yi, called on the United States to “abandon its suppression of China’s technological development.”
Some experts believe that cooperation, not conflict, is needed to confront what is perceived as a threat to all of humanity. Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended a conference hosted by the Beijing Society for Artificial Intelligence to encourage cooperation between Chinese and US researchers to reduce AI risks.
“International cooperation is more risky than ever,” Altman said, noting that China is home to some of the world’s top AI researchers. “We have to manage risk together.”
Those concerns were echoed at a conference in China, where executives expressed concern about the potential use of AI-generated sounds and images for fraud, hacking and disinformation. campaign.
“The potential for fraud is very high,” said Li Congting, chief AI scientist at video surveillance maker Uniview. “Many people have already tried his ChatGPT. Everyone thinks its interaction ability is very good, as if there is a real human behind it.”
US scientists and technology industry leaders, including senior executives at Microsoft and Google, recently warned of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
Many Chinese researchers echoed these concerns. However, cooperation with the United States was hardly talked about at the Beijing Expo.
“Technology innovation has become the main battleground in international geopolitics,” said Gao Lei, a senior official at a state-owned enterprise controlled by China’s Ministry of Public Security. Gao said the US was “increasing its crackdown” on China’s high-tech industry and that it was “essential” to replace US technology with homegrown computer chips.
The two countries are grappling with AI concerns, but apparent differences in their approach to technology make cooperation difficult.
China has built one of the world’s most intrusive digital surveillance systems, covering streets and rural areas with cameras and tracking its citizens through chat apps and mobile phones.
The US government has sanctioned a number of Chinese tech companies for their involvement in Beijing’s crackdown on tech in the far-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. In the region, digital technology was used to flag ethnic minorities for arrest, often on false grounds.
Many of the companies participating in the expo were sanctioned, They include telecommunications giant Huawei, camera maker Hikvision and surveillance expert Maya Pico. A Meiya Pico representative declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, saying it was banned from speaking to foreign media altogether.
The use of police technology in the United States is constrained by civil society and legal challenges. However, many companies have nonetheless introduced questionable privacy-busting technologies such as facial recognition and predictive policing, fueling charges of hypocrisy and fueling suspicions within China that US sanctions are politically motivated. could not be prevented.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies continue to deploy technology in ways that Western lawmakers fear.
At the conference, one of China Mobile’s researchers discussed the drones the company is providing to the Hong Kong police. Researchers say these were used to monitor protesters during anti-government demonstrations in 2019. Advances in 5G communication technology will eliminate the need for police officers to operate drones in the field, allowing them to do so from the comfort of their offices.
“With the click of a mouse, drone footage from the scene can be sent to a computer,” said researcher Su Yu. “This increases efficiency.”
With tensions at an all-time high, experts say it is an open question whether the two countries can find ways to work together.
“How do the United States and China coexist with such radically different norms for the use of technology and society?” Mr Sachs says. “We have to find a way forward. Politically it won’t be easy.”
