Geopolitical Competition

Dunnmon, a CISAC affiliate and senior advisor to the director of the Defense Innovation Unit, spoke about the “holistic geopolitical competition” among world powers in the AI realm as these systems offer “unprecedented speed and unprecedented scale.”

“Within that security lens, there’s actually competition across the entirety of the technical AI stack,” he said.

Dunnmon said an underlying security question involves whether a given AI software is running on top of libraries that are sourced from Western companies then if software is being built on top of an underlying library stack owned by state enterprises. “That’s a different world.”

He said that “countries are competing for data, and it’s becoming a battlefield of geopolitical competition.”

Societal, Environmental Implications

Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and the director of the Center for Food Security and the Environment, said his biggest concern is about how AI might change the functioning of societies as well as possible bioterrorism.

“Any environment issue is basically a collective action problem, and you need well-functioning societies with good governance and political institutions, and if that crumbles, I don’t think we have much hope.”

On the positive aspects of AI, he said the combination of AI and synthetic biology and gene editing are starting to produce much faster production cycles of agricultural products, new breeds of animals, and novel foods. One company found how to make a good substitute for milk if pineapple, cabbage and other ingredients are used.

Lobell said that AI can understand which ships are actually illegally capturing seafood, and then they can trace that back to where they eventually offload such cargo. In addition, AI can help create deforestation-free supply chains, and AI mounted on farm tractors can help reduce 90% of the chemicals being used that pose environmental risks.

“There’s clear tangible progress being made with these technologies in the realm of the environment, and we can continue to build on that,” he added.
 

AI and Democracy

Persily, a senior fellow and co-director of FSI’s Cyber Policy Center, said, “AI amplifies the abilities of all good and bad actors in the system to achieve all the same goals they’ve always had.”

He noted, “AI is not social media,” even though it can interact with social media. Persily said AI is so much more pervasive and significant than a given platform such as Facebook. Problems arise in the areas of privacy, antitrust, bias and disinformation, but AI issues are “characteristically different” than social media.

“One of the ways that AI is different than social media is the fact that they are open-source tools. We need to think about this in a little bit of a different way, which is that it is not just a few companies that can be regulated on closed systems,” Persily said.

As a result, AI tools are available to all of us, he said. “There is the possibility that some of the benefits of AI could be realized more globally,” but there are also risks. For example, in the year and a half since OpenAI released ChatGPT, which is open sourced, child pornography has multiplied on the Internet.

“The democratization of AI will lead to fundamental challenges to establish legacy infrastructure for the governance of the propagation of content,” Persily said.

Balance of AI Power

Fukuyama pointed out that an AI lab at Stanford could not afford leading-edge technology, yet countries such as the U.S. and China have deeper resources to fund AI endeavors.

“This is something obviously that people are worried about,” he said, “whether these two countries are going to dominate the AI race and the AI world and disadvantage everybody.”

Manuel said that most of AI is now operating with voluntary governance – “patchwork” – and that dangerous things involving AI can be done now. “In the end, we’re going to have to adopt a negotiation and an arms control approach to the national security side of this.” 

Lobell said that while it might seem universities can’t stay up to speed with industry, people have shown they can reproduce those models’ performances just days after their releases.
 

On regulation — the European Union is currently weighing legislation — Persily said it would be difficult to enforce regulations and interpret risk assessments, so what is needed is a “transparency regime” and an infrastructure so civil entities have a clear view on what models are being released – yet this will be complex.

“I don’t think we even really understand what a sophisticated, full-on AI audit of these systems would look like,” he said.

Dunnmon suggested that an AI governance entity could be created that’s similar to how the U.S. Food and Drug Agency reviews pharmaceuticals before release.

In terms of AI and military conflicts, he spoke about the need for AI and humans to understand the rewards and risks involved, and in the case of the latter, how the risk compares to the “next best option.”

“How do you communicate that risk, how do you assess that risk, and how do you make sure the right person with the right equities and the right understanding of those risks is making that risk trade-off decision?” he asked.

The Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program was established in 1982 to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to analyze and address complex global challenges in a rapidly changing world, and to prepare the next generation of leaders for public and private sector careers in international policymaking and implementation.

This article originally appeared in The Stanford Daily.

European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell M.S. ’75 visited the Hoover Institution on Monday for an event hosted by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

In a keynote speech followed by a conversation with the institute’s director and former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, Borrell delved Europe’s crucial role and responsibilities in addressing ongoing war in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as geopolitical security and emerging technology more broadly.

Borrell emphasized the need for EU countries to collectively adapt to the changing geopolitical landscape and increase their strategic responsibility. He stressed the importance of European unity in the face of challenges posed by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, noting that the security landscape has “dramatically changed.”

“Europe has to learn to speak the language of power,” Borrell said, emphasizing the need for Europe to increase its military capacities while utilizing all available tools to face global challenges.

Listen to Representative Borrell's full discussion with Michael McFaul below on a special episode of World Class podcast.

Follow the link for a transcript of "Strategic Responsibility in the EU, United States, and Beyond."

Regarding the Israel-Gaza war, Borrell called for a political process that would empower the Palestinian Authority and reach a solution for peace, describing the current state as “a stain on human consciousness.” He urged the international community to push for a ceasefire, secure the release of hostages, and ensure better access to humanitarian aid in the region.

“It is not a natural catastrophe what is happening in Gaza. It is not an earthquake, it is not a flood when you come and help people suffering the consequences. [It] is a manmade disaster, is a manmade catastrophe,” Borrell said.

Among the other global challenges Borrell called for Europe to address was the continent’s dependence on China for critical materials and technologies. He emphasized the importance of coordinating with the US to counter China’s growing influence in the global economic and political sphere.

“More coordination in front of China should be one of the most important things that the Europeans and the Americans should do in order to balance the challenges of this world,” Borrell said.

More broadly, Borrell spoke to the importance of coordination between the US and EU to work globally to protect “political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion.”

Borrell acknowledged that the United States is a global leader in emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and stressed the importance of cooperation on trade and technological innovation. He expressed concern that regulatory hurdles may be hindering the EU’s ability to catch up with the U.S. in the technology sector and emphasized the significance of transatlantic collaboration in shaping the future of technology.

“I am happy to know that we are partners in building a responsible and human-centric technological innovation,” Borrell said.

The importance of partnership across countries was a throughline in Borrell’s speech, as he concluded with a reminder of the interconnectedness of global security and social well-being. “You cannot be secure at home if your neighbor is not eating dinner.”

Watch High Representative Borrell's full keynote remarks below. Video courtesy of the European Commission.

‘Unwavering commitment’

Matviichuk was a visiting scholar at CDDRL in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program, a predecessor to the Center’s current Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program, during the 2017-18 academic year. 

Kathryn Stoner, the Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, said, “For her unwavering commitment to her work, Matviichuk has received international recognition for her work on issues such as democratic reforms, improved public control, and oversight of law enforcement agencies and the judiciary in the wake of the 2004 Orange Revolution.” Matviichuk received the Democracy Defender Award in 2016.

During the question-and-answer session, Michael McFaul, director of FSI and former ambassador to Russia, said that while he totally agreed with aid to Ukraine, it was important to explain to skeptical Americans how U.S. support will favorably change the situation on the ground for Ukraine and what this means overall for democracy on a global scale.

Matviichuk said, “It’s very simple. We will survive. Because when the United States and other countries start to provide Ukraine with weapons, it gives us a chance to push Russian troops out.”

As the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which received the Nobel Peace Prize under her leadership, and a human rights lawyer focused on issues within Ukraine and the OSCE region, Matviichuk now leads initiatives aimed at fostering democracy and safeguarding human rights. Her organization supports legislative reforms, monitors law enforcement and the judiciary, conducts wide education programs, and leads international solidarity efforts. 

Global Democracy vs. Authoritarianism

Law and order represent critical distinctions between Russian authoritarianism and global democracy, said Matviichuk, who tearfully noted at one point that she recently lost a close friend in a Russian attack.

“As a human rights lawyer, I found myself in a situation where the law doesn’t work. Russian troops are destroying residential buildings, schools, churches, museums, and hospitals. They’re attacking evacuation corridors; they’re torturing people, infiltration camps. They’ve forcibly taken Ukrainian children to Russia. They ban Ukrainian language and culture,” she said.

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Matviichuk co-founded the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative, documenting war crimes across affected Ukrainian regions. 

“We have an ambitious goal to document every criminal episode that has been committed in the smallest settlement in Ukraine. Working together, we have already recorded and contributed over 68,000 episodes of war crimes to our database. We are documenting more than just violations of the Geneva Conventions. We are documenting human pain,” she said.

She said the Russian-Ukraine War demonstrates that the West is now dealing with the formation of an entire authoritarian bloc. “They all feature a crucial commonality. All these regimes have the same idea of what a human being is. Authoritarian leaders consider people as objects of control and deny them rights and freedoms. Democracies consider people's rights and freedoms to be their highest value, and there is no way to negotiate this because it only exists in the free world.”

The conflict has increased an axis of authoritarianism between Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. “I live in Kyiv, and my native city, like thousands of other Ukrainian cities, are constantly being shelled not just by Russian rockets but also Iranian rockets and Chinese,” she said.

Russia has never been punished for a long list of attacks in recent years. “They believe they can do whatever they want. I‘ve talked to hundreds of people who survived Russian captivity. They told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes, and electrically shocked. They were compelled to write something with their own blood. There is no legitimate reason for doing this. There is also no military necessity in it. Russians did these horrific things only because they could,” Matviichuk said.

Putin and NATO

Matviichuk said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not as afraid of NATO as he is of the idea of freedom. “The people in Ukraine want peace much more than anyone else. But peace doesn't come when the country which was invaded stops fighting. That's not peace. That’s occupation.”

She added, “If we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, he will go further. And we have no time.”

Matviichuk said Putin governs his country not just through repression and censorship but also through a special social contract between the Kremlin elite and the Russian people. “This social contract is based on Russian glory—the problem is that, unfortunately, the majority of Russian people still see their glory in the forcible restoration of the Russian Empire.”

War Crimes, Accountability

Matviichuk urged establishing a special tribunal on Russian aggression in Ukraine to hold Putin, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka, and other alleged war criminals accountable. 

“The scale of work grows so fast that it becomes impossible to recognize all these stories, but I will tell you one,” she said. “The story of Svetlana, who lost her entire family when the Russian missile hit her building. I heard them dying. My husband was breathing heavily, straining as if he was trying to throw the rubble off of himself, but he couldn’t. At some point, he just went still. My grandmother and Jania died instantly. I heard my daughter crying … My mother told me that he called for me several times and then nothing. People are not numbers. We must ensure justice for all people affected by this war, regardless of who they are.”

She said the calls of some for Ukraine to stop defending itself and to satisfy Russia’s imperial appetites are immoral. 

The world has entered a period of turbulence, and “now fires will occur more and more often in different parts of the world because the international wiring is faulty and the sparks are everywhere,” Matviichuk said.

The S.T. Lee Lectureship is named for Seng Tee Lee, a business executive and noted philanthropist. Dr. Lee is the director of the Lee group of companies in Singapore and of the Lee Foundation. He endowed the annual lectureship at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.