Wary of Washington, Europe frets it will be left behind on an AI battlefield

The Hague – A few days before NATO met in the Netherlands, one of its best commanders, Pierre Vandier, responsible for transforming the Alliance for the next fight, has appealed: Great Britain will have to intensify its contributions to intelligence to the Alliance in the future.

“The United Kingdom has this in its DNA,” said Vandier.

It was a recognition that the United States, swiveling towards a much larger threat of intelligence in China, could leave its European allies in their own existential fight with Russia. A lack of reliability on the first world superpower of AI, according to European officials, will make the continent vulnerable in a race for the superiority of intelligence which will take place to revolutionize the world battlefields.

The rush towards artificial intelligence was a strong underlying current at the top of NATO in The Hague this week, serving not only as a gathering for the leaders of the Alliance, but also as a forum of the defense industry for the actors of the emerging power in the Silicon Valley, treated in the domestic rooms of Holland as a new type of fee.

“The AI ​​will be an important part of the war in the future, but it is always very new, and NATO tends not to be at the forefront of the innovation lance – and there is a division within the Alliance on the way of developing AI, with regard to the regulation and security of AI,” said Max Bergmann, director of Europe, Russia and the Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic Studies and international.

“Technological companies do not have the same pride in the European economic system, and they are not consumed with the need to compete with Militaly China – they are much more focused on Russia,” added Bergmann. “While the United States aims to win the AI ​​race, Europeans are watching what’s going on in Ukraine and saying:” We just need to dissuade Russia. “”

Until now, for European capitals, this has meant integrating powerful collection and data processing systems in defense services and improving the performance of automated surveillance systems and drones – well -capacity skills in Europe’s capacities. Several German and French companies, such as Helsing, Azur and Quantum Systems, are already developing products according to what they see in Ukraine.

But the next fight will require technologies that overshadow existing drone capacities, experts said.

“We have been predicting for some time that there would be the integration of AI into military research and development and defense systems, and I expect, for example, that the cyber capacities will play an important role in the coming years,” said Jonas Vollmer, head of the UA project. “Europe has an influence, but it is struggling with the difficult reality that they do not have access or a strong domestic development of border AI systems, and they are far behind it.”

Last year, NATO allies agreed to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence in its operations. There are signs the urgency of the senses of the block to do so, by signing an agreement with Palantir, a technological company based in the United States, to integrate AI into its warning systems after only six months of negotiations.

The United States and China are well ahead of the competitors in the race for the superiority of AI, measured in power of raw calculation and the proximity of general artificial intelligence – the AI ​​which has cognitive capacities of human level to learn and develop alone – and finally to the superintelligence, by starting the human mind.

However, the United Kingdom is a serious actor on the ground. The kingdom ranks third in government investments in AI research in the world and has solid partnerships with some of the most powerful American players.

In its latest defense strategy, also published shortly before the NATO summit, Great Britain is committed to joining artificial intelligence in its approach to national security “first of NATO”. “The forecasts of the moment when artificial general intelligence occur are uncertain but shortened, with deep implications for defense,” said the document.

The race for Europe for intelligence capacities is motivated, in part, by the lessons learned from the battlefields of Ukraine. But Russia is not considered a power of AI in itself. Moscow uses low cost of drone and cyber attacks to maintain pressure on the alliance, Vandier at the Times of London in an interview. “The goal, I think, is to consume all our energy in purely defensive actions, which are very expensive,” he said.

The question of whether Russia can improve its own AI capabilities is an open question.

“The key ingredients to be on the border with AI are the talented and data centers,” said Volmer, of the Futures AI project.

“Russia is far behind the two,” he added, “but they can collaborate with China, of course.”