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efforts to address systems and databases that themselves are rid-
dled with bias. In most cases, these things have to be completely
rebuilt, and that’s a costly time-consuming process. I don’t see
anybody making great strides in this regard.
One key issue is that there is no singular baseline or set of
standards to evaluate bias — and no goals for overcoming the bias
that currently exists throughout AI. Until we have that, the per-
sonal experiences and ideals of a select few will continue to drive
decision-making.
You have said that the U.S.-based members of the Big Nine
function as a mafia in the purest sense. Please explain.
I refer to the U.S. members of the Big Nine as the G-MAFIA,
which is an acronym for Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/
IBM/Amazon. But it’s more than just an acronym, because for
many years these companies, like mafias everywhere, have been
working independently of the government — and at the same
time, not collaborating with each other.
Overwhelmingly, these companies now control the lion’s
share of patents, and they control or have access to more data
than any other organization — including the government, which
is pretty scary. The G-MAFIA have built systems that are mar-
keted as open-source systems, but in effect, once you start using
them, you can’t untether yourself from them. They’re building
the hardware; they’re making the investments; and they have the
partnerships with universities. In a very real sense, these compa-
nies are deciding the future of AI — and by extension, what the
future of humanity will look like.
Describe how China is approaching the future of AI.
That’s a really interesting piece of this. As indicated, in the U.S.,
the Big Nine function independently of the federal government.
As a result, it’s the market and the whims of Wall Street that help
to determine what these companies are doing. A couple of weeks
ago, Google had its investors call, and it announced that it was go-
ing to spend a significant sum of money on R&D — which inves-
tors responded to negatively, because they saw that as an indica-
tion that margins would shrink. As a result of that, we’re probably
going to see some shifts in their direction going forward. The fact
is, nobody else is funding this. The government, especially under
the Trump administration, has actually stripped away funding.
We don’t have enormous sums of money for basic research. We
have basically left it to these companies to build it all for us.
That is definitely not the case with China and its Big Nine
companies — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. There has been
not just consolidation among the industry but consolidation of
power. Many years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
decided that AI would be a central focus for its activities going
forward. There was an initial plan announced in 2013, and there
have been subsequent strategic plans announced since then.
Some might argue that China has made many announce-
ments over the years that have gone nowhere, but the key differ-
ence now is that there is a younger government in place — po-
litical leaders who are also trained in technology. There is also
a critical mass of people using Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, and
while these are independent companies, they are very much un-
der the control of Beijing.
For example, for a while, Apple and Google were competing
in the autonomous driving space. But the Chinese government
went in a different direction, decreeing that Baidu would be the
company that investigates autonomous driving, while Tencent
would investigate health and AI. With that kind of strategic align-
ment, as well as parts of the sovereign wealth fund being dedi-
cated to AI, these companies are shaping the country’s education
system. This is trickling down into other areas of life, including
some domestic programs that are engineered for social control
and the free flow of information.
On top of everything else, China’s plans and AI are tethered
to its Brick and Road Initiative, which is touted as an infrastruc-
ture initiative along what was the old Silk Road Trading Route.
What’s interesting is that this is not about building bridges and
making trade easier; there are already 58 pilot countries on theThe G-MAFIA is deciding the future of AI — and by extension,
what the future of humanity will look like.
WARNING #1:We mistakenly treat AI like a digital platform—
similar to the Internet—with no guiding principles or long-term
plans for its growth.WARNING # 2 : AI is rapidly concentrating power among the
few, even as we view it as an open ecosystem with few barriers.