In artificial intelligence race, Pentagon wants a reluctant Silicon Valley’s help
SAN FRANCISCO — There is little doubt that the Defense Department needs help from Silicon Valley’s biggest companies as it pursues work on artificial intelligence. The question is whether the people who work at those companies are willing to cooperate.
Robert O. Work, a former deputy secretary of defense, plans to team up with the Center for a New American Security, an influential Washington think tank that specializes in national security, to create a task force of former government officials, academics and representatives from private industry. Their goal is to explore how the federal government should embrace AI technology and work better with big tech companies and other organizations.
There is a growing sense of urgency to the question of what the United States is doing in artificial intelligence. China has vowed to become the world’s leader in AI by 2030, committing billions of dollars to the effort. Like many other officials from government and industry, Work believes the United States risks falling behind.
“The question is how should the United States respond to this challenge?” he said. “This is a Sputnik moment.”
The military and intelligence communities have long played a big role in the technology industry and had close ties with many of Silicon Valley’s early tech giants. David Packard, Hewlett-Packard’s co-founder, even served as the deputy secretary of defense under President Richard M. Nixon.
But those relations have soured in recent years — at least with the rank and file of some better-known companies. In 2013, documents leaked by former defense contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of spying on Americans by intelligence services, including monitoring the users of several large internet companies.
Two years ago, that antagonism grew worse after the FBI demanded that Apple create special software to help it gain access to a locked iPhone that had belonged to a gunman involved in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.
“In the wake of Edward Snowden, there has been a lot of concern over what it would mean for Silicon Valley companies to work with the national security community,” said Gregory Allen, an adjunct fellow with the Center for a New American Security. “These companies are — understandably — very cautious about these relationships.”
The Pentagon needs help on AI from Silicon Valley because that’s where the talent is. The tech industry’s biggest companies have been hoarding AI expertise, sometimes offering multimillion-dollar pay packages that the government could never hope to match.
Work was the driving force behind the creation of Project Maven, the Defense Department’s sweeping effort to embrace artificial intelligence. His new task force will include Terah Lyons, executive director of the Partnership on AI, an industry group that includes many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies.
Work will lead the 18member task force with Andrew Moore, the dean of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. Moore has warned that too much of the country’s computer science talent is going to work at America’s largest internet companies.
With tech companies gobbling up all that talent, who will train the next generation of AI experts? Who will lead government efforts? “Even if the U.S. does have the best AI companies, it is not clear they are going to be involved in national security in a substantive way,” Allen said.