Stanford University

Information Technology

Seizing the Moment: America's Alliances and the Technology Race

-

This event is co-sponsored with the Cyber Policy Center and the Center for a New American Security.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/KaydMdIVtGc

 

About the Event: The United States is steadily losing ground in the race against China to pioneer the most important technologies of the 21st century. With technology a critical determinant of future military advantage, a key driver of economic prosperity, and a potent tool for the promotion of different models of governance, the stakes could not be higher. To compete, China is leveraging its formidable scale—whether measured in terms of research and development expenditures, data sets, scientists and engineers, venture capital, or the reach of its leading technology companies. The only way for the United States to tip the scale back in its favor is to deepen cooperation with allies. The global diffusion of innovation also places a premium on aligning U.S. and ally efforts to protect technology. Unless coordinated with allies, tougher U.S. investment screening and export control policies will feature major seams that Beijing can exploit.

On early June, join Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) for a unique virtual event that will feature three policy experts advancing concrete ideas for how the United States can enhance cooperation with allies around technology innovation and protection.

This webinar will be on-the-record, and include time for audience Q&A.

 

About the Speakers: 

Anja Manuel, Stanford Research Affiliate, CNAS Adjunct Senior Fellow, Partner at Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, and author with Pav Singh of Compete, Contest and Collaborate: How to Win the Technology Race with China.

 

Daniel Kliman, Senior Fellow and Director, CNAS Asia-Pacific Security Program, and co-author of a recent report, Forging an Alliance Innovation Base.

 

Martijn Rasser, Senior Fellow, CNAS Technology and National Security Program, and lead researcher on the Technology Alliance Project

Virtual Seminar

Anja Manuel, Daniel Kliman, and Martijn Rasser
Seminars

Data-intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from Facial Recognition AI Firms in China

-

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

Data-intensive technologies such as AI may reshape the modern world. We propose that two features of data interact to shape innovation in data-intensive economies: first, states are key collectors and repositories of data; second, data is a non-rival input in innovation. We document the importance of state-collected data for innovation using comprehensive data on Chinese facial recognition AI firms and government contracts. Firms produce more commercial software and patents, particularly data-intensive ones, after receiving government public security contracts. Moreover, effects are largest when contracts provide more data. We then build a directed technical change model to study the state's role in three applications: autocracies demanding AI for surveillance purposes, data-driven industrial policy, and data regulation due to privacy concerns. When the degree of non-rivalry is as strong as our empirical evidence suggests, the state's collection and processing of data can shape the direction of innovation and growth of data-intensive economies.

Portrait of David Yang
David Yang’s research focuses on political economy, behavioral and experimental economics, economic history, and cultural economics. In particular, David studies the forces of stability and forces of changes in authoritarian regimes, drawing lessons from historical and contemporary China. David received a B.A. in Statistics and B.S. in Business Administration from University of California at Berkeley, and PhD in Economics from Stanford. David is currently a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard and a Postdoctoral Fellow at J-PAL at MIT. He also joined Harvard’s Economics Department as an Assistant Professor as of 2020.

Via Zoom Webinar.
Register at: https://bit.ly/2VlhaMm

David Yang Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics; Department of Economics, Harvard University
Seminars

Doctrinal Confusion and Cultural Dysfunction in the Pentagon Over Information and Cyber Operations

Authors
Herbert Lin
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

In a Lawfare post earlier this year, I questioned the wisdom of referring to cyber operations as psychological operations. These campaigns are the bread and butter of U.S. Cyber Command’s operational activities. My interest in this question stemmed from two recent articles, one on NPR and one in the Washington Post. The former discussed past activities of U.S. Cyber Command and the latter discussed possible future activities. Taken together, both articles used terms such as “information warfare,” “information operations,” “psychological operations” and “influence operations” to describe these activities.

I closed that post with a promise to comment on the doctrinal and conceptual confusions within Defense Department policy regarding all of these concepts. This post makes good on that promise.

 

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

Hero Image
lin herbert 1
All News button
1

Technology Tensions Redefining U.S.-China Relations, Says Security Expert Adam Segal

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The headlines about the United States and China have been dominated by the spread of COVID-19 and trade deal negotiations. Experts in U.S.-China relations have warned against preemptive disengagement in a time of increased need for international cooperation and coordination, even as tensions between the two countries continue to escalate in the media.

From Adam Segal's perspective, as an expert in security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the emerging considerations that will prominently affect the tone and timbre of the relationship between the United States and China in the coming years is how the two nations compete with one another in technological and scientific research and innovation. He delved further into this topic in a lecture as part of the China Program's winter/spring colloquia series.

[To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox, sign up for our newsletters]

As Segal and others describe, both the United States and China benefitted immensely from the globalization of scientific research and collaboration, but in recent years, both have also become wary of sharing talent and resources too broadly or across too many sectors. As a result, each country has taken various measures in an attempt to gain and regain perceived advantages over the other.

As China has tried to move up the so-called economic value chain from being an overwhelmingly manufacturing and heavy industry-based economy to being a leader in tech and digital economies, it has simultaneously tried to wean itself from a dependence on foreign technological infrastructure. In its efforts to create indigenous innovation and technological growth, it has openly tried to court talent and intelligence from overseas. To the United State's rising concern, however, the Chinese government has been less open about the means used to accomplish this aim.

On its part, the United States has upped its efforts to expand cybersecurity research and initiatives. The Trump administration has very vocally critiqued companies such as Huawei and urged allies to step back from business with the telecom and networking giant. Similarly, allegations of espionage against native Chinese and Chinese-American scientists and academics have escalated in recent months.

Segal argues that these simmering tensions signify the growing awareness each country has of the other's increasing capabilities in the cybersphere, as well as a heightened understanding and awareness of the shortcomings of their own systems.

"I think technology, which had usually been a fifth, sixth, seventh on the agenda in the U.S.-China relationship, is going to continue to be one of the defining issues that structure the relationship, and increasingly is one not just about concerns about national security, but about values and how we think about how technology is applied, and governance issues."

To watch Segal's full lecture, click the video below or find it on our YouTube channel. A transcript of his remarks is available

Hero Image
Adam Segal lectures at APARC
All News button
1

POSTPONED: The Ukrainian Nexus: Government, Technology, Creativity.

-

POSTPONED: Due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, Stanford CDDRL will be postponing The Ukrainian Nexus Conference until a later date. Please check back for updates on our rescheduled conference date.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Please join the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law for the conference, "The Ukrainian Nexus: Politics, Technology, Creativity". This is the Center's second annual conference on Ukraine, created by the program's fellows. 

After the events of 2019 everybody knows about Ukraine in the U.S. but nobody actually knows what Ukraine is. The mission of the Conference is to discover Ukraine and its role in the world order for the Stanford and the broader Silicon Valley community. There will be three streams -- Government, Innovation/Business and Creativity. 

The goal of this year's conference is to bring together major stakeholders from the new Ukrainian leadership (government, parliament, civil society and business), Silicon Valley's technology and innovation sector, and the Stanford academic community. 

In addition to conference leadership from core faculty members Francis Fukuyama, Michael McFaul and Steven Pifer, conference participants and agenda will be updated here. 

CANCELED: Data-intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from Facial Recognition AI Firms in China

-

IMPORTANT EVENT UPDATE: 

In keeping with Stanford University's March 3 message to the campus community on COVID-19 and current recommendations of the CDC, the Asia-Pacific Research Center is electing to postpone this event until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we do our best to keep our community healthy and well. 

 

Data-intensive technologies such as AI may reshape the modern world. We propose that two features of data interact to shape innovation in data-intensive economies: first, states are key collectors and repositories of data; second, data is a non-rival input in innovation. We document the importance of state-collected data for innovation using comprehensive data on Chinese facial recognition AI firms and government contracts. Firms produce more commercial software and patents, particularly data-intensive ones, after receiving government public security contracts. Moreover, effects are largest when contracts provide more data. We then build a directed technical change model to study the state's role in three applications: autocracies demanding AI for surveillance purposes, data-driven industrial policy, and data regulation due to privacy concerns. When the degree of non-rivalry is as strong as our empirical evidence suggests, the state's collection and processing of data can shape the direction of innovation and growth of data-intensive economies.

Portrait of David Yang
David Yang’s research focuses on political economy, behavioral and experimental economics, economic history, and cultural economics. In particular, David studies the forces of stability and forces of changes in authoritarian regimes, drawing lessons from historical and contemporary China. David received a B.A. in Statistics and B.S. in Business Administration from University of California at Berkeley, and PhD in Economics from Stanford. David is currently a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard and a Postdoctoral Fellow at J-PAL at MIT. He also joined Harvard’s Economics Department as an Assistant Professor as of 2020.

David Yang Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics; Department of Economics, Harvard University
Seminars

Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall

-

WE HAVE REACHED VENUE CAPACITY AND ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING RSVPS

 

Authoritarian governments around the world are developing increasingly sophisticated technologies for controlling information. In the digital age, many see these efforts as futile, as they are easily thwarted by savvy Internet users who quickly find ways to evade and circumvent them. In this talk, Professor Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent is enormously effective. Censorship acts like a tax on information, requiring those seeking information to spend more time and money if they want access. By creating small inconveniences that are easy to explain away, censorship powerfully influences the spread of information and, in turn, what people know about politics. Through analysis of Chinese social media data, online experiments, nationally representative surveys, and leaks from China’s Propaganda Department, Professor Roberts find that when Internet users notice blatant censorship they are willing to compensate for better access.  But subtler censorship, such as burying search results or introducing distracting information on the web, is more effective because users are less aware of it. Roberts challenges the conventional wisdom that online censorship is undermined when it is incomplete and shows instead how censorship’s porous nature is used strategically to divide the public and target influencers. 

Portrait of Margaret E. Roberts
Margaret E. Roberts is an Associate Professor at the U.C. San Diego Department of Political Science. Her research interests lie in the intersection of political methodology and the politics of information, specifically focused on automated text analysis and understanding censorship and propaganda in China. Her work has appeared in venues such as the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Political Analysis and Science. Her recent book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall was listed as one of the Foreign Affairs Best Books of 2018, was honored with the Goldsmith Book Award, and has been awarded the Best Book Award in the Human Rights Section and Information Technology and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association.  She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, an M.S. in statistics from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Stanford.

Advisory on Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

In accordance with university guidelines, if you (or a spouse/housemate) have returned from travel to mainland China in the last 14 days, we ask that you DO NOT come to campus until 14 days have passed since your return date and you remain symptom-free. For more information and updates, please refer to the Stanford Environmental Health & Safety website: https://ehs.stanford.edu/news/novel-coronavirus-covid-19

Image of red flag over the Shanghai Bund
This event is part of the 2020 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, The PRC at 70: The Past, Present – and Future?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Margaret E. Roberts Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, U.C. San Diego
Seminars
The PRC at 70: Past, Present -- and Future?

Huasheng Zheng

0
Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2019-20
PetroChina / China National Petroleum Corporation
huasheng_zheng.jpeg MBA

Huasheng Zheng is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2019-20.

Takafumi Ochiai

0
Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2019-20
The Asahi Shimbun Company
takafumi_ochiai.jpeg MS

Takafumi Ochiai is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2019-20. Ochiai has over 9 years of experience as an engineer at The Asahi Shimbun, the national leading newspaper company in Japan.  At The Asahi Shimbun, he engaged in R&D about artificial intelligence, launches of new media services, and development of a data analytics system.  While at Shorenstein APARC, his research will focus on data science, data-based decision making, and organizational change. 

Subscribe to Information Technology