US urged to consider military strikes to stop China achieving AGI first

A former White House official, Jacob Stokes, deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), urged the US government to consider military strikes, espionage, and cyber measures to prevent China from achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) first. In a CNAS report and an online event on Thursday, Stokes called on agencies like the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency to assess intelligence needs for such actions, citing China's advances in robotics and embodied AI as potential for a surprise breakthrough.

US urged to consider military strikes to stop China achieving AGI first Former White House staffer calls for espionage and cyber options as Washington prepares for a potential Chinese breakthrough Vincent Chow /author/vincent-chow in Washington artificial general intelligence https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3357525/how-deepseeks-landmark-funding-secures-liang-wenfengs-grip-chinas-ai-rivalry-heats?module=inline&pgtype=article AGI , according to a former White House official, including state-backed espionage and military strikes on Chinese data centres. Jacob Stokes, deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Centre for a New American Security CNAS , said at an online event on Thursday that various US agencies, including the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency, should begin assessing what intelligence they need to justify taking such actions. “Trying to think through the particulars of that will be especially important, in part because it will help policymakers … start to work backwards based on the unique nature of the technology, in the same way that in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons and … work backwards from the science to the policy implications,” he said. In a new CNAS report published last week, the former Obama administration national security staffer called for the US government to consider the feasibility of diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures to prevent China from achieving AGI first. US-China geopolitical competition https://www.scmp.com/news/us/article/3360729/us-hardens-ai-stance-china-anthropic-calls-extending-lead?module=inline&pgtype=article . months-long lead over China https://www.scmp.com/news/us/article/3360729/us-hardens-ai-stance-china-anthropic-calls-extending-lead?module=inline&pgtype=article in frontier AI models, according to Epoch AI. However, China could make a “surprise technological breakthrough” that means it is close to achieving or achieves AGI first, Stokes wrote, citing China’s advances in areas such as robotics and other forms of “embodied AI”.