Beijing has warned devolved governments not to give artificial intelligence access to sensitive personal information or state secrets in a statement that sounds far removed from Downing Street’s domestic policy.
Lawmakers in Beijing have instructed local authorities to tread carefully when it comes to the rollout of automation, AI and machine learning within the public sector estate. Notably, this includes stopping short of ‘blindly’ pursuing technological superiority.
The Cyberspace Administration of China and the National Development and Reform Commission issued updated guidance on how artificial intelligence could and should be used by devolved powers. Public questions can be answered by automated systems, which are also green-lit for drafting documents, completing forms and conducting research. Drones and surveillance cameras are approves to assess the condition of infrastructure, while big data can be used to evaluated policy, trigger natural disaster alerts and develop emergency response plans.
However, this came with a number of warnings, including the need to protect data and information on individuals when training AI models, which must be regulated to avoid opening access to state secrets. As per the South China Morning Post, complete evaluations must be carried out before platforms are brought online, staff must be fully trained to use systems, and have knowledge of both the technology and theory of artificial intelligence, in addition to safety and ethics.
While this all seems logical, the cautionary language contrasts statements from the UK Government about its own AI, tech and digital public sector revolutions, which are already underway. This summer, for example, a major deal between Whitehall and Google Cloud was described by critics as ‘dangerously naive‘ in light of how much data on Britons would be held in US servers and the notoriously unpredictable and protectionist nature of President Donald Trump and his administration.
Earlier this year, we reported on how a House of Lords Constitution Committee was undertaking an enquiry into ‘rule of law in the UK’. This process saw a number of experts raise red flags over the lack of transparency around automation and public bodies, with little known about which organisations were using these technologies, how, and what the impact would be on the lives of everyday citizens.
China’s stance on artificial intelligence has been markedly different from the West for some time now. While Silicone Valley, the wider US industry, and counterparts across Europe have long been fixated on AI as a epoch-defining and world-changing technology, and achieving supremacy in this is worth removing guardrails and fail-safes.
This attitude is good for business, but less reassuring when we consider where innovations may accidentally lead, where ‘the singularity’ (the point at which artificial intelligence supersedes human) is reached or not. In comparison, Beijing views the sector as more a general-purpose leap forward which can improve efficiency. Or, as The Economist put it: “technology of huge but not apocalyptic significance: something more like electricity or computers than the atom bomb.”
Image: chen zy / Unsplash
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