Today we speak about artificial intelligence and security with Lindsay Gorman, managing director and senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Technology program, and a former senior tech and security adviser in the White House under President Joe Biden.

Lindsay and David discuss the fight between the Pentagon and AI company Anthropic, the legitimate concerns of the military, and the Trump Administration’s terrible signal to tech companies that want to support national security. They talk about who should control this megapowerful technology in the future—the state or the private sector?

They also cover the US-China tech race, Chinese innovation, authoritarian versus democratic governance of AI, disinformation and deepfakes, and the need for democracies to steer AI towards applications that value freedom and human agency.

Mentioned in this episode

David Wroe's article on the Pentagon-Anthropic saga and who should control AI: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/pentagon-anthropic-brawl-demands-rethink-of-ai-industry/

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It’s a double-segment episode of STW today. Fresh from last week’s India AI Impact Summit in Delhi, Australia’s Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, Dr Andrew Charlton, speaks with us about artificial intelligence, the future of the Australian economy—including the future of work—and progress on international cooperation on AI.

Then we hear from Maxwell Scott, co-founder and CTO of Strat Alliance Global, which helps companies and organisations integrate AI safely and lawfully. Max continues the conversation on the prospects for rising productivity, how AI might complement, enhance or replace certain human tasks, the near term limitations of AI models, comparisons to the Industrial Revolution, and the worry that keeps Max awake at night: the risk of deliberate misuse by rogue humans.

Max, who recently visited Australia, also talks about AI opportunities and risks here, prospects for global cooperation and governance, and competing models for national regulation.

Speech by Dr Andrew Charlton

Dave’s piece in the Australian Financial Review

Luke de Pulford is executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – a cross-party network of parliamentarians from more than 40 countries who share concerns about Beijing’s behaviour at home and abroad.

Luke, a human rights activist and anti-slavery advocate, recounts how the group came together in 2020, the challenges it faces and how it works to shift the centre of gravity on debates relating to Beijing’s punishment of critics and defiance of international norms.

He talks about the challenges of holding China to account even as many countries drift away from taking principled stands, the impact of the United States’ retreat from leadership of the liberal order, and the need to be the squeakiest wheel when pushing human rights cases.

He discusses the recent conviction and sentencing of businessman and democracy activist Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, Britain’s shifting position on China relations, and the dilemma for Australia—which counts 20 parliamentarians from the major parties as members of IPAC—in having an economy heavily invested in China and a security strategy invested in the US.