All of the above suggests that we should proceed with caution before rushing to center the U.S. arsenal on A.I.-driven systems and other emerging technologies. But there is money to be made in going full speed ahead, and that could undermine the U.S. government’s ability to take a deliberate approach to fielding next-generation systems.
As we lay out in a new issue brief for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a handful of leaders in the venture capital community—including firms like Founders Fund and Andreesen Horowitz—have led the charge to throw billions in investment funds at emerging tech start-up companies. How large these investments are is not entirely clear, but figures cited have ranged from $6 billion to over $100 billion in the past few years alone. And that’s before Saudi Arabia concludes a proposed deal to work with Andreesen Horowitz to invest $40 billion in the A.I. sector, a move that should be carefully scrutinized by Congress and executive branch regulators.
The new V.C.-funded emerging tech sector is urging the Pentagon to move rapidly to develop and deploy its products, pressing for more funding, and, perhaps more importantly, less rigorous monitoring procedures in the development of military uses for A.I. and other new technologies. And, as The New York Times has reported, Silicon Valley defense producers and funders are adopting traditional lobbying methods to get their way, including the hiring of large numbers of former military officers and senior government officials to go to bat for them in Washington. There is a danger that the growing power of military-oriented V.C. firms and the companies they support will succeed in accelerating the process of integrating emerging technologies into the U.S. military without adequate safeguards, to the detriment of our safety and security.
