The Pentagon Is Using China to Scare Tech Companies Into Working With the Military

‘We are engaged in an epic race for A.I. supremacy’

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty

Tech companies like Google and Amazon are facing new pressure from United States officials to build software for the American military. Without the aid of these companies, officials warn, the U.S. military could find itself outmatched in conflicts against countries like China, which is investing billions into artificial intelligence.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who recently spoke at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence conference in Washington, D.C., said that whether or not Silicon Valley chooses to work on U.S. defense projects could decide the future world order. Esper framed the choice in dramatic terms: a future of global authoritarianism or global democracy.

“The real question is whether we let authoritarian governments dominate A.I., and by extension the battlefield,” Esper said. “Or whether industry, the United States military, and our partners can work together to lead the world in responsible A.I. research and application.”

What alarms officials like New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work, who both spoke at the conference, are statements like the one made by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, indicating that whoever leads in A.I. will become “the ruler of the world.” China recently announced its goal to become a world leader in A.I. technology by 2030.

“As I speak, China and Russia are striving to overtake us. Neither of these nations shares our values, or our freedoms.”

American tech companies and universities like Stanford and Carnegie Mellon have so far led the world in bringing A.I. software to market, leaving the federal government and military behind. For example, Google has reportedly used machine learning algorithms to save up to 40% in cooling costs for its data centers; meanwhile, the U.S. military is still figuring out how to keep fitness trackers from divulging the locations of its bases. Now the U.S. government is taking a different tack to get its hands on the tech — and framing government contracting as an…