We’re in a new Cold War, driven by big data, AI and drones

WATERLOO — Social media posts in Western countries can be used by China to widen its lead in artificial intelligence, a University of Waterloo conference on research security heard Monday.

“All of that can be harvested as data and potentially weaponized,” said Bessma Momani, a University of Waterloo political scientist who chaired the opening panel on emerging technologies.

Artificial intelligence platforms need huge amounts of data to become useful, and because China has the biggest population in the world, it has more data than anyone else.

“China has four times the data than us,” said Daniel Araya of the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

If China is hoovering up more data from social media posts in the West to continue improving its AI systems, it could lead to further fragmentation of the internet, said Araya.

Regulations to address one problem can lead to others, he noted. There is no European country among the world leaders in AI because of its General Data Protection Regulation that came into effect in 2016.

“Europe does not show up in AI, and that’s because of the GDPR,” said Araya.

During the first Cold War between the West and the former Soviet Union, the defining technology was missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to targets around the world.

Today, the Second Cold War between the West and China has world powers competing for data.

“We are shifting from a capital-intensive system to a data-intensive system,” said Araya.

AI is not China’s only technology lead.

China leads the world in biotechnology, gene sequencing, nanotechnology, chip making and facial recognition, said Yelena Bidmore of Skidmore College and Harvard University’s Davis Centre. Highly contagious and deadly diseases could be introduced to populations using nanotechnology, and nobody would know, she said.

The United States military told its personnel to stop using gene sequencing kits from private companies over fears the data will be sold to the Chinese, said Bidmore.

“The cost of that Second Cold War is just so incredibly high to the future of humanity that anything we can do to prevent it is going to be important,” said Bidmore.

More and more, wars will be fought off the battlefield, using drones, video and artificial intelligence, the conference was told.

“All of the crazy books we read as children — “Brave New World” and “1984” — now seem more and more possible,” said Momani.

The conference was organized by UW’s Office of Research. It follows Ottawa’s crackdown on research projects between Canadian universities and Chinese scientists that could benefit the Chinese military.

But Michele Mosca, of the UW Institute for Quantum Computing, said China became a world leader in quantum communications using technology developed in the West.

“They didn’t steal it,” said Mosca.

Rather, the Chinese made a deliberate decision to take publicly available research and pursue it, while the West continued thinking about it, said Mosca.

It should serve as a lesson as there are 50 Canadian startups trying to commercialize quantum technology; governments can help buy buying and using their technology, he said.

“We have this tremendous opportunity to do something great with it,” said Mosca.

Quantum computers are the next generation of supercomputer, and will quickly lay waste to the current security that protects online commerce and sensitive information. Closely related are the fields of quantum sensors, quantum cryptography, materials and communications.

Governments and universities should ensure quantum researchers have opportunities to pursue their work, and more importantly, commercialize it, said Mosca.

“There is a lot of know-how in how to apply it in the real world,” said Mosca. “If we hold the fundamental IP (intellectual property) but we don’t know how to apply it in the real world, it is not going to have that much impact either.”

The University of Waterloo conference on research security in today’s fragmenting world attracted about 150 researchers and academics from Canada and the U.S.

The conference was held as relations between China and Canada have sunk to their lowest point since Canada initiated diplomatic relations in 1970.

Canada and the U.S. shot down a high-altitude balloon on Feb. 4, claiming that China used the balloon to collect electronic intelligence. China denies that. At least three other suspicious objects have been shot down over North America since the first incident.

The balloons were not much of a threat, Stephanie Carvin of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University told the conference. Cyber attacks are the real threat from China, she added.

“We are freaking out about the wrong thing,” said Carvin.

Intelligence is not evidence, and just because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has a source that claims China is stealing research and interfering with Canadian elections does not make the accusations true, said Carvin, a former CSIS analyst.

As universities learn to navigate the new security-related rules for research, Carvin reminded everyone about the widespread surveillance of academics, students and social justice groups by the RCMP Security Service during the Cold War.

“We have gotten this wrong before,” said Carvin.

To avoid the mistakes of the past, Carvin said universities and funding agencies should focus on the activities of individual researchers, not groups or countries.

A more recent security policy that ended up targeting a single ethnic group was the No-Fly List. The list includes names of known and suspected terrorists. But Canadian Muslims who happened to have the same name as a terrorist on the list were told there was nothing that could be done, said Carvin.

It took 10 years of lobbying by the Muslim community before Ottawa added appeals and corrections when someone with no connection to terrorists was prevented from flying, said Carvin.

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