Larry Wortzeland retired army officer and expert in who was military attaché in Beijing, has prepared a report in which he has warned about the growing use of Artificial Intelligence weapons by the Asian giant.
The text, called “Artificial intelligence and its influence on Chinese military thinking and operations” and published in the magazine Defense Fileexposes the contradictions between what Chinese President Xi Jinping says he is going to do with the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to military weapons and what he is actually doing.
Recently, Xi Jinping reached a series of commitments with US President Joe Biden on the responsible use of military AI tools that do not actually correspond to chinese military writings what reveal plans for extensive and unrestricted robotic weaponry.
Specifically, China is actively developing weapons powered by Artificial Intelligenceincluding Autonomous drones, tanks, ships and submarines. In fact, it has already shown quadrupedal robot dogs armed with machine guns.
In that sense, Xi agreed with Biden in November to keep nuclear weapons control out of AI-powered systems. “However, at the operational and tactical level, writings reveal aggressive push toward AI-enabled ‘kill chains’ and autonomous systems”stressed the former military attaché in Beijing.
“This bifurcation can create dangerous uncertainties in crisis situations.”particularly if adversaries misunderstand which domains are governed by human decision-making and which by AI systems,” the specialist added.
The dual command structure
However, despite this accumulation of weapons, Wortzel highlights that A major problem is that Chinese political commissarsin charge of imposing Marxist-Leninist ideological orthodoxy in the ranks, They have the same authority as commanders in charge of making military decisions.
This dual structure, according to the expert, will cause major command problems to China “as artificial intelligence systems increasingly demand rapid and decentralized responses.”
“The dual command structurewhich makes the Party’s political commissars equal to the commanders, can hinder rapid AI decision-making”Wortzel highlighted.
