AI Arms Race

Colonel Davis reads the morning intelligence brief on a screen that will erase itself in thirty minutes. China has deployed a new autonomous maritime surveillance system in the South China Sea. The system can identify, track, and—Davis reads the word carefully—“engage” vessels without human authorization. The brief says the engagement capability is probably defensive. Probably. In the afternoon meeting, a civilian analyst presents a model showing that the U.S. is fourteen months behind China in autonomous targeting systems. Another analyst disputes the methodology. A third says the methodology doesn’t matter because the perception of a gap is strategically identical to an actual gap. Davis drives home through traffic that a Chinese-made navigation app is routing more efficiently than the American-made alternative, which strikes him as a metaphor he should not share at work. His wife asks how his day was. He says fine. His son is playing a war game on a tablet. The enemies in the game are robots. Davis watches for a moment and says nothing.