Hoover Institution
12/04/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/04/2024 01:11
Defense Against The AI Dark Arts: Threat Assessment And Coalition Defense
The United States must now start working very hard with allies to secure democratic advantage in the domain of frontier AI. We suggest how to manage the convergence of three great vectors: private sector-led innovation, emerging threats, and international efforts. An essential starting point is to build a defensive agenda, build a historic public-private partnership, and design overlapping circles of international cooperation. The time to start shaping the national security agenda for AI has arrived.
Key Takeaways
- The national security agenda for AI goes well beyond just evaluating the safety of private products. Using frontier AI, the US has to evaluate and counter what our most dangerous enemies can do with frontier AI.
- This agenda calls for three circles of international cooperation: among core participants in coalition defense; among AI producers; and among the wider community worried about the risks.
- This agenda envisions a historic public-private partnership, with at least ten major issues on the table, as the government will rely on best-in-world private help for coalition defense.
- The rise of powerful open-weights models creates special risks. At a minimum, governments must have their own independent capacity to evaluate the dangers before such models are deployed.
Defense Against the AI Dark Arts: Threat Assessment and Coalition Defense. by Hoover Institution
About The Authors
Philip Zelikow is the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He held a chaired professorship in history at the University of Virginia for twenty-five years and was an associate professor at Harvard University. An attorney and former career diplomat, Zelikow worked across government in five presidential administrations and directed three successful bipartisan national commissions.
Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar is the tenth president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and serves on the boards of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Inflection AI.
Eric Schmidt is an accomplished technologist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He served as Google's chief executive officer and chairman from 2001 to 2011, as well as executive chairman and technical advisor. In 2021 Schmidt founded the Special Competitive Studies Project, a nonprofit initiative focused on strengthening America's long-term AI and technological competitiveness in national security, the economy, and society.
Jason Matheny is president and CEO of the RAND Corporation. He previously led technology and national security policy at the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He was founding director of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University and director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.