The United States and it’s military appears to be currently led by the most defeatist, incompetent, and anti-American group of people in modern history.
One former senior level Pentagon leader is sounding the alarm, claiming that the USA has already lost the AI battle to China and in his opinion we might as well give it up and praise our new Chinese overlords.
Via the Financial Times:
The Pentagon’s first chief software officer said he resigned in protest at the slow pace of technological transformation in the US military, and because he could not stand to watch China overtake America.
In his first interview since leaving the post at the Department of Defense a week ago, Nicolas Chaillan told the Financial Times that the failure of the US to respond to Chinese cyber and other threats was putting his children’s future at risk.
“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” he said, adding there was “good reason to be angry”.
Chaillan, 37, who spent three years on a Pentagon-wide effort to boost cyber security and as first chief software officer for the US Air Force, said Beijing is heading for global dominance because of its advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyber capabilities.
He argued these emerging technologies were far more critical to America’s future than hardware such as big-budget fifth-generation fighter jets such as the F-35.
We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal
“Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal,” he said, arguing China was set to dominate the future of the world, controlling everything from media narratives to geopolitics. He added US cyber defences in some government departments were at “kindergarten level”.
A man with the attitude of Nicolas Chaillan should never have held a senior position in the Pentagon.
Perhaps Mr. Chaillan never heard of Sputnik. We were behind in space at the time but American leaders of that era refused to give up and eventually won the space race.
Maybe instead of saying it’s too late and China has won, we should rally and work to overcome the alleged Chinese head start in AI.
Sadly it appears too many of today’s leaders would rather just give up, abdicate the American position in the world and let the Chinese communists dominate the globe.
They would rather let the same nasty group of people that unleashed covid upon the world dominate the planet than put up a fight.
This makes it obvious that it is long past time to clean house in government, the military and the bureaucracy. Our country truly is doomed if we allow those in charge to just give up.
