OPINION:
Chinese President Xi Jinping just called on China to ramp up efforts to modernize the country’s military. This is a threat that Washington must take seriously.
Fortunately, the Trump administration is doing so. As President Trump said, “We need to make the United States the world’s unquestioned leader in artificial intelligence while recognizing the risks and challenges that accompany this transformative technology.”
The nation that leads in AI will have many strategic advantages over its adversaries, both militarily and economically. That’s why Chinese Communist Party leaders aren’t the least bit shy about saying that they want to dominate AI worldwide and to put the U.S. in second place.
This is also why U.S. policymakers must handle AI policy with extraordinary care.
Excessive AI regulation in the U.S. could discourage investment into this new technology and delay the deployment of that tech, driving research and talent elsewhere.
One particularly excessive piece of AI regulation currently before Congress is the Remote Access Security Act (RASA). The members who introduced this bill threaten to undercut the Trump administration’s long-term goal of ensuring that American-made AI technology becomes the global default option for U.S. allied nations.
RASA, if enacted, could more heavily regulate foreign access to American technologies through cloud computing.
Closing loopholes that allow China and other adversaries to exploit U.S. AI infrastructure is a legitimate national security objective. But Congress must implement the law narrowly.
That’s the problem with RASA: Organizations far beyond China could face restrictions based on broad categories rather than individualized national security risk.
No one believes that AI companies should operate without rules. Americans expect that the people who create this new technology will develop it responsibly and securely. But there is a profound difference between regulation that enables innovation and regulation that impedes it.
The former protects America’s national security, while the latter risks it — by making it far more difficult for the rest of the world to choose American AI products over Chinese ones.
Mr. Xi has made clear that China has no intention of slowing down. America shouldn’t either.
MIKE ASOODEH
Hammond, Louisiana
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