Q&A: The race for AI supremacy & a new escalation in Ukraine?

Jamie Rubin (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Christiane Amanpour (0:04)

It is getting incredibly scary, and this last week had everybody just on pins and needles.

Jamie Rubin (0:10)

Very, very hard to read the newspapers, read the accounts of what's going on in the artificial intelligence sphere without feeling like the world is at risk. If the makers of this technology, the designers of this technology seem to be scared of their own technology.

Christiane Amanpour (0:31)

There has to be a quote unquote, an AI arms control agreement between the two superpowers. I think it's an escalation. I don't think Putin's making mistakes.

Jamie Rubin (0:40)

Putin will feel compelled to go to another place.

Christiane Amanpour (0:43)

If Ukraine cannot survive this winter, it's going to be, they're going to be on the back foot for the rest of this war. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Q&A episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour in London.

Jamie Rubin (0:58)

And Jamie Rubin here in New York City.

Christiane Amanpour (1:00)

And of course, this is where we answer your questions, so we're going to get started. Jamie, this is a good one for you.

Cassie on X wants to talk about AI. Anthropic CEO has called the US-China AI race his, quote, toughest dilemma, warning that the military advantage of pulling ahead could make it almost impossible to slow down. How worried should we be that AI is becoming the next arms race? I think it's very good question, and I'm interested to hear what you say because I have my ideas.

Jamie Rubin (1:29)

Right. Short answer is yes, this is a major problem of our time.

It is very, very hard to read the newspapers, read the accounts of what's going on in the artificial intelligence sphere without feeling like the world is at risk. If the makers of this technology, the designers of this technology seem to be scared of their own technology and are sort of calling for regulation and calling for a pause, it's really remarkable that we're not doing anything about it. The problem is that I am also, like the leaders of many of these companies, not all of them, but many of them, very, very, very worried about China and what China's intentions in the world are. And the worst combination I can imagine is a Chinese Communist Party in control of a super-intelligent technology that could use surveillance technology and surveillance control to have even greater control over not just China, but the rest of the world. So the dilemma is if the United States companies were to stop advancing on their own unilaterally, China would be catching up and maybe superseding the US capabilities, and that would make me very, very uncomfortable.

Christiane Amanpour (3:02)

Okay.

Jamie Rubin (3:03)

So, you know, where does that leave us?

Look, the arms control issue is the one that started me out in government in the 80s, when I was very concerned, you know, perhaps unfairly, but I really thought there was going to be a nuclear war in 1981, 82, 83 I thought the chances were like 50-50, that we were all going to die in a nuclear, global nuclear exchange of thousands of warheads. And I began to learn and began to study and became my passion and profession, nuclear arms control.

And that was in a similar situation where you had an American advantage in the technology, but you had a Soviet system that was deemed dangerous, but neither side was going to benefit if these weapons were used. I think there's an analogy in that we are still in a competition, if not adversarial relationship with China.

Yet, AI out of control is a potential threat to all humans, Chinese and Americans. As John F. Kennedy said famously with regard to nuclear weapons, we all breathe the same air. We all have the same hopes for our children. We all want to live on this earth. The Chinese people, the American people, all the people of this world. So those analogies give you hope that maybe, just maybe, ways can be found to control the technology, to develop rules and control agreements and other governance that will limit the risks and take advantage of the obvious potential advantages of AI in the area of health and many other categories. But there are clearly risks, biological weapons being made more easy to produce, cyber security, these agents running amok in the internet and shutting down companies or financial systems or water systems. So there's plenty of risk, there's plenty of opportunity. There's clearly an adversarial relationship between the United States and the Chinese. And now what we need is some well-intentioned smart people to get together and figure out how to manage this seemingly unmanageable problem.