Charles Lyons-Burt
Federal agencies in the U.S. need to invest heavily in solutions with artificial intelligence embedded in them and develop along the same path or get left behind by China, AI technology firm Digital Science has warned.
The notice has come from Digital Science President Stephen Leicht, who said AI technology and its multifaceted uses will continue to grow at a blistering pace, so the key for agencies is to work in partnership with AI solution providers to drive progress for all concerned.
“If I run an analysis of AI-related research outputs in 2023 or 2024 – it doesn’t matter what the topic is, it could be artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles or related technologies – it’s going to be China that’s first,” said Leicht. He went on to explain that 10 years ago, this same analysis always showed the U.S. on top.
“China is outputting at a rate that is significantly ahead of anybody else in the world. That is the backdrop, and if I were a U.S.-based decision maker I would operate from an assumption that some of our strategic competitors, and China in particular, may be doing these things better, may be investing more, and may be ahead of the U.S.”
To help governments, funders and other operators keep developing in the research space, Digital Science launched Dimensions Research GPT in February 2024. Built on Dimensions — the world’s largest linked research database with over 145 million publications — it provides answers to research queries from tens of millions of articles, grants, clinical trials and patents found within Dimensions, and is available in some form to anyone with a ChatGPT account.
Just a week later, a new feature was launched in Dimensions which delivers summarizations to all search queries on the database.
While AI may have multiple applications, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. When responsibly applied, these technologies can significantly enhance capabilities and streamline research and discovery workflows, leading to benefits of enhanced efficiency and knowledge mobilization.
Common concerns about AI use, particularly in the defense space, include the practical — such as over-reliance on AI technology, knowledge gaps, in-built biases and possible job losses in the sector — to the strategic and tactical, such as the potential for deception or weaponization.
Challenges have also been identified in terms of the pace of adoption and technological development of AI by the U.S., as in recent years China’s overall research output has overtaken that of the U.S. But other areas need to be kept abreast of as well, Leicht said.
“Other areas that I think will be super-critical will be anything related to autonomous systems, so AI-driven vehicles and AI-driven drones are going to fundamentally change the way our military leaders think about reconnaissance, surveillance and combat operations,” the Digital Science president continued.
“In addition to cybersecurity, I think there are really significant challenges with integration. You can imagine there are a lot of advantages to having the largest and most powerful military in the world with an enormous infrastructure in place, but that also means we have a lot of legacy, so integrating these capabilities into our day-to-day operations in a way that is usable is a big, tall order.”
