Ylli Bajraktari is the President and CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project. He served as the Executive Director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
Federal Newswire
What is the Special Competitive Studies Project?
Ylli Bajraktari
There were two driving forces that led us…to launch the Special Competitive Studies Project. When most of us worked at the AI Commission, that was an eye-opening experience. All of a sudden, I was confronted with a technology that’s going to be transformative, and I'm a very skeptical person by nature.
It's probably once-in-a-generation technology that's going to shape all aspects of our life, and ultimately national security, the way we project power, and build our country and our economy.
The second piece was the realization that our main competitor, China, understands the importance of this technology. They are investing, they have a vision about where they want to go with this technology.
This is not a cold war-like situation. That was a much different era in which the government was able to put the testing, evaluation, and deployment of these capabilities under a policy framework because they were all happening inside the government labs. This is a different era where technology innovation is happening outside of government and it's happening really fast.
This is a really important decade. The national security strategy called it a decisive decade in our competition with China and I truly believe the next couple of years are really fundamentally critical in how we organize and approach this competition. I believe technology is at the center of competition.
Federal Newswire
How should the government manage technology competition with China?
Ylli Bajraktari
I remember meeting with Representative Gallagher (Chairman of the Select Committee on China)--I'm a big fan. I think the work he has done with the China Select Committee is tremendous.
I was fortunate to work for General McMaster on the national security strategy document of 2017. It is probably going to be remembered as one of the most important documents because it turned the corner on how we viewed China up to that moment.
[I said] “I'm sorry Representative Gallagher, the big piece missing in that document is the technology piece, and there are reasons for that because our government is not organized.”
Federal Newswire
Given the challenges that we face and the competition we're in, how should we be thinking about decoupling or minimizing economic risk with China?
Ylli Bajraktari
My biggest worry is, do we understand the sense of urgency, and are our actions really reflective of that urgency?
At the SCSP we say that after the end of World War II security became the main domain of competition against the Soviet Union. Therefore we created the National Security Council at the White House, which I was proud to serve. After the end of the Cold War the global economy-integrated free-market became the notion driving the international order. So we created the National Economic Council. We thought that is the driving force for global good and therefore we need to be organized for that. After the tragic events of 9/11 we created another office at the White House that dealt specifically with CT related issues.
What we have argued, first with the AI commission and also with the SCSP, is we need the change to happen from the top.
If we are in techno-economic competition–more on the techno than the economic with AI–[then] all these emerging technologies [are] providing an early glimpse of the future, and we need to be organized for that future.
We have argued that we need a technology competitiveness council. We model this on the space council that exists at the White House. If we didn't create that in the 50’s and 60’s, we would have never gone to the moon. That worked because the space council existed at the White House.
Our argument has been that if we all believe that we are in techno-economic competition with China and that AI and all the other constellations of these emerging technologies are the battlefield, then we need to be organized differently. We need to create maybe a new council at the White House that brings together all the stakeholders.
The first step, which started at the previous Administration and continues with this Administration, is how do we build domestic capabilities and sufficient independence from China on these critical technologies, especially on the hardware side?
The second piece is how do we protect [what] we have so that China doesn't steal it with IP theft or through third party actors, and use these technologies to get ahead in this space.
Federal Newswire
How should the concept of ‘reciprocity’ play into our interactions with China?
Ylli Bajraktari
We talk about this in a number of our publications. One of the examples where we've been pretty vocal is TikTok, for example. Our argument has been, how did we get to the point of allowing our main competitors' social media platform to have unimpeded access to our citizens? This is not just an economic competitor. This is a competitor across all domains, especially military and security.
Their goals and ambitions about Taiwan and Southeast Asia have been pretty clear. Their goals about AI have been pretty clear. They want to be a global AI power by 2030. Their global strategy–“Made in China 2025"--has been pretty transparent.
There are enormous resources behind these strategies. We have seen how they have deployed 5G globally, and [how they] pick their national AI champions and deploy them globally.
We can see now what's happening with the electric vehicles all of a sudden within less than two years. China, because of the speed and scale and government subsidies, can deploy enormous numbers of vehicles and become the largest exporter of EV’s.
To the point of TikTok, how did we allow [it] to get to this point? None of our social media platforms can operate inside China.
TikTok should not be allowed to operate the way it has operated in the United States. The second argument is reciprocity, because we have seen China chasing out our companies, like technology, consulting, or manufacturing companies.
There's a set of platforms coming out of China, whether it's in retailing or online payment systems, that pose a serious threat for the future because they're building global platform coverage. They're deploying platforms that we will use to buy, sell, pay, and use at any given moment if this is the economy of the future.
Raising awareness about this threat is what's needed first and foremost here domestically in the United States because I think we don't think much about where the products are coming from.
Federal Newswire
Where can we go to follow your work?
Ylli Bajraktari
We have an incredible website, www.scsp.ai. You can follow us on traditional LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
