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Chinese national charged with stealing Google’s trade secrets
Image courtesy of Midjourney
Linwei Ding, a Chinese national residing in California, was arrested and indicted last Wednesday for allegedly stealing artificial intelligence-related trade secrets from Google and transferring them to his Chinese companies. Ding, who worked for Google, allegedly took more than 500 confidential files from his employer and used them in his work with two companies in China — one he founded, the other that recruited him and told investors he was the chief technology officer.
Neither Ding nor his lawyer have commented publicly on the case.
Bill Hannas, the lead at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former expert at the CIA, said it’s both a case of an individual allegedly enriching himself by stealing valuable trade secrets and a threat to US national security.
“Known cases of outright theft, where China is the beneficiary, number in the hundreds,” Hannas said. But there have been tens of thousands of cases overall in which US technology ended up in China through unknown or obscured means, he added.
Eurasia Group’s Director of Geo-technology Xiaomeng Lu says it’s still unclear if there’s any direct involvement from the Chinese government in Ding’s case.
“Maybe the FBI has more information about the case that they haven’t revealed,” Lu said, “but what I have seen in media reports doesn’t explicitly suggest the stolen information has serious national security implications – chip and software design information reads more like trade secrets than national security secrets.”
The United States tries to restrict China’s access to valuable technology that would aid its efforts to develop sophisticated AI models and computing capabilities. Washington strengthened export controls over semiconductor technology earlier this year to cut off China from the kinds of high-powered chips necessary to run AI models.
“Export controls encourage China to find other ways to get what they need,” Hannas said. “Chips are an area where China is said to lag by comparison, but the other big deficit, acknowledged by top Chinese scientists themselves, is AI algorithms.” It’s more difficult to clamp down on scientific progress than specific materials, and this kind of corporate espionage is one way of gaining parity with the US.
Ultimately, Washington is concerned that China will one day outpace the American military with AI-powered autonomous weaponry. “The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences,” FBI director Christopher Wraywrote in a press release.
The Justice and Commerce departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force, established last year, has focused on using export controls to cut off foreign adversaries including Iran and Russia, in addition to China. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote that, as part of these efforts, the Justice Department will “relentlessly pursue and hold accountable those who would siphon disruptive technologies – especially AI – for unlawful export.”
A corporate espionage case targeting Google may be a ways away from delivering on that concern, but the government’s aggressive response signals a willingness to closely monitor any AI technology leaving the country — especially through illicit means.
If convicted, Ding will face up to 10 years in prison for each count.
Hard Numbers: Bye-bye Bard, Arm’s up, Robots took my job, Super Bowl ad blitz
60: The British chip designer Arm Holdings is experiencing a market surge. The company’s stock saw a 60% increase after positive financial results and a rosy outlook. The company, which licenses its chip designs, attributes increased demand to the AI boom.
4,600: Artificial intelligence has already led to 4,600 layoffs in the US, according to the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. And that’s a conservative estimate. Unlike with robotics breakthroughs of yore, this wave of artificial intelligence seems laser-focused on displacing white-collar workers.
7 million: AI made its way into some of this year’s Super Bowl ads — 30-second commercials that sold for about $7 million. Etsy debuted its AI shopping assistant, Microsoft boasted its Copilot AI business tool, and Google highlighted how its Pixel 8 phone uses the technology to help blind people take photos.Ian Bremmer: On AI regulation, governments must step up to protect our social fabric
Seven leading AI companies, including Google, Meta and Microsoft, committed to managing risks posed by the technology, after holding discussions with the US government last May—a landmark move that Ian Bremmer sees as a win.
Speaking in a GZERO Global Stage discussion from the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media President Ian Bremmer calls tech firms' ongoing conversations with regulators on AI guardrails a "win" but points out that a big challenge with regulation will be that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, as AI impacts different sectors differently. For example, ensuring AI can’t be used to make a weapon is important, “but I want to test these things on societies and on children before we roll them out,” he says.
“We would've benefited from that with social media,” he added.
The conversation was part of the Global Stage series, produced by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft. These discussions convene heads of state, business leaders, technology experts from around the world for critical debate about the geopolitical and technology trends shaping our world.
Watch the full conversation here: How is the world tackling AI, Davos' hottest topic?
- The geopolitics of AI ›
- Stop AI disinformation with laws & lawyers: Ian Bremmer & Maria Ressa ›
- Ian Bremmer: How AI may destroy democracy ›
- Podcast: Artificial intelligence new rules: Ian Bremmer and Mustafa Suleyman explain the AI power paradox ›
- EU AI regulation efforts hit a snag ›
- AI and Canada's proposed Online Harms Act - GZERO Media ›
Hard Numbers: Stolen art, mathletes, DeepMind defection, Antitrust tussle, Labor shortages
25: A math-focused AI system is almost at the level of our species’ most advanced teenage mathletes. The model called AlphaGeometry reportedly scored a 25 out of 30 on the International Mathematical Olympiad, the premier high school math competition. The average gold medalist in the competition has scored a 25.9.
220 million: A pair of Google DeepMind engineers are reportedly ready to leave the company, in talks to raise $220 million to build a new large language model. The company, which would be based in France, is tentatively called Holistic.
2: The US government's effort to investigate Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI is on hold. The problem: Two different agencies can’t decide on who should take the lead. This is the problem that’s arisen between the country’s two antitrust authorities, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Neither party seems ready to relinquish the job to the other.
11 million: Japan is estimated to face a labor shortage of 11 million people by 2040 as its aging population peaks and exits the workforce. While AI and robots may displace human labor in some economies, they might also help others — such as Japan — avert crises in industries such as construction and retail.Hard Numbers: xAI's Musk money, Investing in Replicate, Undressing AI, AFL-CIO-Google?, NVIDIA’s big gamble
$40 million: AI startup Replicate raised $40 million last week from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz. The company maintains an extensive library of 25,000 open-source models on its platform, all of which are available for developers to tinker with, including Meta’s large language model LLaMA and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion 2.0. These open models serve as a counter to proprietary — or closed-source — models like OpenAI’s GPT-4.
24 million: AI has been a major tool for computer-generated nonconsensual pornography — a problem that disproportionately affects women. In September alone, 24 million people visited websites that gave them the ability to “undress” — or “nudify” — people in photographs using machine-learning technology.
12.5 million: Google just announced a partnership with the AFL-CIO, one of the most influential US labor unions representing 12.5 million workers. The goal of the partnership is to start an “open dialogue” about how AI might impact the workforce. Microsoft also committed to providing AI training for AFL-CIO members and agreed to include AI-related language in a union contract covering hundreds of workers at ZeniMax, a video game studio it owns. The language dictates that Microsoft is meant to use AI only to “treat all people fairly.”
35: NVIDIA invested in 35 firms this year as the race for AI dominance heated up, making it the most active large-scale investor in the space. That coincided with a year of staggering growth for the US chipmaker, which saw its stock rise 225% and its market capitalization exceed $1 trillion.Canada averts a Google news block, US bills in the works
The act, which is modeled on Australian legislation, led Google to threaten to de-index news from its search engine. In protest of the law, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked links to Canadian news in the country on both platforms. It’s currently holding out on a deal as Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge tries to get the company back to the bargaining table.
The Online News Act kerfuffle is a symptom of a bigger issue: the power of governments to regulate large tech firms – a fight that is playing out in Canada, the US, and around the world. California is considering a law similar to Australia's and Canada’s. The bill passed the Assembly but is now on hold in the state senate until 2024. In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sens. Mike Lee and Amy Klobuchar, introduced a similar bill in the Senate, casting it as an anti-trust, pro-competition measure. Meta has made similar threats to pull news in response to the US push to mirror the Australian and Canadian laws.
Tech giants are resisting attempts to extract funds from them to support news media, a tactic that is part of a broader strategy to oppose regulation. But the Australian and Canadian successes may encourage California, the US Congress, and other states to move forward with similar efforts. The coming months will be a test of whether governments are able – and willing – to regulate these powerful companies. All eyes should be on the progress, or not, of the California and Congressional bills along with Canada’s negotiations with Meta since these cases will help decide the future of tech regulation itself.
Google throws Trudeau a lifeline
Canada’s Online News Act, introduced last summer to force revenue-sharing on tech giants, backfired badly when Meta decided to block Canadian news outlets from their platforms rather than pay up.
Bill C-18 and the tech giants’ response to it spelled trouble for a media industry already in crisis – traffic and revenue plummeted. It was bad news for PM Justin Trudeau, whose revenue-sharing law was intended to improve things for media outlets, not make things worse, and it opened him to criticism that he was incompetently wrecking an industry he was trying to help.
But this week brought a turn in fortune. Canada reached a deal with Google that will see the tech giant compensate Canadian news outlets for linking to their stories. The deal, which requires Alphabet to pay between $100 million and $172 million a year, is a huge relief to Trudeau after months of withering criticism.
Facebook and Instagram are still blocking news links from Canadian publishers, and there is no indication that Meta wants a deal under any circumstances.
Google and Meta were undoubtedly nervous about an open-ended requirement to pay what could set a pricey precedent for them in other jurisdictions. However, according to the CBC, Ottawa will introduce regulations allowing Google to negotiate with a group representing all media organizations, thereby limiting its arbitration risk. Similar laws are being considered in Washington state and California.
The money in question – well below $200 million – is not huge considering that Google has about half of all of the $14-billion digital advertising revenue in Canada in 2022.
Reaction in Canada is mixed. The deal comes as a relief, but it will not save the industry. In both Canada and the United States, the rise of digital advertising has bled revenue from traditional media, leading to job losses and growing news deserts, or areas without a local newspaper. The Trudeau government responded with this bill and with government subsidies: The recent fall economic statement included $129 million, for example, for news organizations through a tax credit for up to $29,750 per journalist.
But such government backing may come at a price. Increasingly, Conservatives are warning that news organizations will be motivated to support the Liberal government in order to keep the money flowing.
New rules for political ads
Meta wasn’t the first Big Tech platform to introduce such a policy. Google, the largest advertising company in the world, announced a similar stance in September. But Facebook and Google are encouraging ad agencies and small companies to use their generative AI tools for commercial marketing campaigns – drawing a line in the sand when it comes to politics.
Proposed legislation: In doing so, they’re likely front-running future regulation. In May, a group of US senators including Amy Klobuchar introduced legislation to mandate disclosures when AI technology is used in political ads. Klobuchar and Rep. Yvette Clarke, the bill’s House sponsor, sent letters to Meta — along with X, formerly known as Twitter — asking why they were not requiring these disclosures. One month later, Meta voluntarily implemented the policy.
In September, Klobuchar introduced a separate bipartisan bill with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley aimed at explicitly prohibiting the use of AI-generated content in political ads. In October, she told Bloomberg she thinks there’s a “good chance” Congress will pass legislation regulating AI in political ads before the end of the year.
Will voters care? The issue seems to have gained support among the public too: A recent poll by Axios and Morning Consult found that 78% of Americans surveyed think political advertisers who use AI should be “required to disclose how AI was used to create the ad.” By contrast, only 64% said the same when it came to how AI is used “in professional spaces.” So if candidates play fast and loose with generative AI in their campaigns, it could backfire on them at the voting booth.