June 19, 2023

AI’s Gatekeepers Aren’t Prepared for What’s Coming

New technologies can change the global balance of power. Nuclear weapons divided the world into haves and have-nots. The Industrial Revolution allowed Europe to race ahead in economic and military power, spurring a wave of colonial expansion. A central question in the artificial intelligence revolution is who will benefit: Who will be able to access this powerful new technology, and who will be left behind?

What is clear is that current state-of-the-art AI models are not safe and no one knows how to reliably make them safe.

Until recently, AI has been a diffuse technology that rapidly proliferates. Open-source AI models are readily available online. The recent shift to large models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is concentrating power in the hands of large tech companies that can afford the computing hardware needed to train these systems. The balance of global AI power will hinge on whether AI concentrates power in the hands of a few actors, as nuclear weapons did, or proliferates widely, as smartphones have.

Read the full article from Foreign Policy.

  • Commentary
    • Sharper
    • November 20, 2024
    Sharper: Trump 2.0

    Donald Trump's return to the White House is widely expected to reshape America's global priorities. With personnel choices and policy agendas that mark a significant break fro...

    By Charles Horn & Gwendolyn Nowaczyk

  • Podcast
    • November 18, 2024
    Team America

    Kate Kuzminski, Deputy Director of Studies, and the Director of the Military, Veterans, and Society (MVS) Program at CNAS, joins to discuss President-elect Donald Trump nomina...

    By Katherine L. Kuzminski

  • Commentary
    • November 14, 2024
    Response to Request For Comment: “Bolstering Data Center Growth, Resilience, and Security”

    CNAS experts emphasize the importance of data centers for artificial intelligence...

    By Janet Egan, Geoffrey Gertz, Caleb Withers & Grace Park

    • Podcast
    • November 12, 2024
    Will Technology Define the Future of Geopolitics?

    Rachel Ziemba, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Steve Paikin to discuss the era of growing geopolitical tensions paralleled by deepening ...

    By Rachel Ziemba

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia