By Futurism. In a blistering new interview with the Financial Times, the Pentagon’s former chief software officer said that he resigned in protest of slow technological innovation in the United States — and, in a provocative twist, opined that China is dominating in the space, particularly at developing advanced artificial intelligence.
“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years,” Nicolas Chaillan, who quit the Defense Department in September, told the newspaper in his first interview since leaving the post. “Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion.”
Chaillan’s complaints are numerous. He blasted cybersecurity in some parts of the US government as “kindergarten level,” decried lack of cooperation between the US military and its tech sector, and said that he had wasted his time “fixing basic cloud things and laptops.”
Most of all, though, he seems furious that China is pulling ahead in the realms of artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyberattack capability. In a particularly grim critique, he complained that US tech giants like Google have been hesitant to dive into particularly controversial AI research, whereas Beijing isn’t held back by those pesky ethical debates. (Read more from “Pentagon Tech Chief Quits in Frustration, Says U.S. Has No “Fighting Chance” Against China” HERE)
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Ex-Pentagon Official: U.S. Has Lost the Technology Battle to China
By Washington Examiner. The former inaugural chief software officer at the Pentagon said he believes the United States has already lost the technological battle against China.
Nicolas Chaillan, 37, who worked for three years on a Department of Defense-wide effort to enhance cybersecurity and became the first chief software officer of the Air Force , resigned last month in part due to his belief that the U.S. is getting outmaneuvered by foreign powers.
“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” he told the Financial Times in an article published on Sunday, adding there was “good reason to be angry.”
Chaillan argued that the emerging technological advances and developments pose a much more important aspect to defense than commonly thought of military hardware, such as fighter jets.
Some of the U.S. cyberdefense systems are at a “kindergarten level,” he said, later noting that China is angling to dominate the military sphere in the future. Even though the U.S. still spends more than three times on defense as the Chinese do, Chaillan said much of that funding is being spent on the wrong things and that bureaucracy and regulations play a role in it, too. (Read more from “Ex-Pentagon Official: U.S. Has Lost the Technology Battle to China” HERE)
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