Undersecretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael said Tuesday at Breitbart News’s latest policy event that whoever wins the AI Race, the United States or China, will dominate economically and militarily.
During Breitbart News’s “AI is Here: What to Fear, What to Embrace,” Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle asked Michael what would happen if the United States loses the AI race to China, and what the stakes would be for Western civilization as a whole. Michael said that whoever emerges as the victor in the AI race will lead economically.
“If you think about the 20th century, the way I’ve described this is we had military power leading up through World War II, and that created sort of… peace besides the Cold War, and then that led to our technological dominance. The internet started here. The internet economy started here. The iPhone, the app economy started here, and… that led to our sort of economic dominance… military technology economy,” he said. “Now, in the 21st century, I think technological dominance will determine whether we are economically dominant and militarily dominant. It stems from the tech dominance.”
“If AI is the central, newest, and most important new technology, if we’re not dominant in that, it threatens our military and economic dominance, and it’s just a different flow in the 21st century,” he added. “And whoever wins that technological race, I think, is going to be [sic] economically, and that means the dollar is the reserve currency. That means priceable are priced in dollars. That means American bonds are the kind of thing that people invest in for safety. That means we have much more control of the financial system and… can ensure that it’s used for good.”
“So I think,” Michael asked, “do you want the Chinese model or the American model in the 21st century? And that starts for who’s going to be dominant in technology.”
Taylor Budowich, the founder of Innovation Council Action Inc. and former White House deputy chief of staff, told Boyle in an earlier conversation at the event that allowing China to win the AI race is “not an option.”
Hellbound and Down 