Editorial 1: India, USA and the AI bridge
Introduction: As the foreign and defence ministers of India and the US gather in Delhi this week to review and advance the defence and security partnership, cooperation in artificial intelligence ought to loom large in the discussion.
How discussion on AI becomes central point to 2+2 meeting
- Two developments last week underline the urgency for an intensified and comprehensive India-US discussion on AI.
- The Executive Order on AI issued by President Joe Biden,
- Biden’s Executive Order deals with securing the use of AI in various civilian uses
- The release of the Pentagon’s updated strategy for AI adoption by the US armed forces.
- Pentagon strategy highlights the importance of integrating the rapid developments of AI into military doctrine and operations.
- The two initiatives deal with a fundamental tension between the simultaneous need to stay on top of a technology that could significantly alter the global power structure and prevent the dangers of this technology from spinning out of control.
New geopolitical fautline between USA and China
- The two initiatives also underline the central geopolitical faultline in the world today — the deepening rivalry between the US and China.
- The prospect of Beijing getting ahead in using AI for economic and military purposes is of deep concern to both the US and India.
- Biden’s Executive Order seeks to establish “new standards for safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world”.
Significance of AI in Defence Strategy
- The main objective in developing AI for defence, is to build on the “decision advantage” that it offers the nation’s armed forces.
- From the standpoint of deterring and defending against aggression, AI-enabled systems can help accelerate the speed of commanders’ decisions and improve the quality and accuracy of those decisions — which can be decisive in deterring a fight, and in winning a fight.
China’s advancement in the use of AI in military strategy
- China has been talking about deploying AI to develop an “intelligentized” military (moving beyond the goal of “informatization” proclaimed two decades ago) as part of its ambition to make PLA a world-class armed force in the next two decades.
- China has made major strides in the development and adoption of AI by both its industry and military.
- The capacity of the Chinese state to drive resources into specific sectors and its “civil-military fusion” has given many advantages to Beijing in the AI race.
Four imperatives of current India-US 2+2 Dialogue
1. Advanced Technology Cooperation:
- Focus on Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies.
- AI cooperation emphasized in joint statement in June.
- Need to update cooperation due to rapid AI advancements.
2. Elevating AI in Defence Partnership:
- Call to elevate AI cooperation in bilateral defence.
- AI's growing role in Indo-Pacific balance of power.
- Positive outcomes from the bilateral defence innovation bridge.
3. Talent Pool and Collaboration:
- US faces a shortage of AI experts.
- India's talent pool seen as a solution.
- Collaboration in education, research, and training under iCET should expand.
4. Responsible AI Development:
- Biden Executive Order and Pentagon strategy highlight "responsible" AI use.
- Relevant issues extend to the Indian economy, society, democracy, and defence.
- Crucial need for India-US collaboration in governing AI to prevent misuse.
Conclusion: The biggest constraint on the US need to accelerate AI development is the shortage of scientists, technologists and engineers. India has a natural talent pool to meet this demand. Hence there exists a natural matching of the interests of both the nations.
Editorial 2 : A light in the sky
Introduction: The two spectacular, razor-sharp images captured by Euclid, a wide-angle telescope with a 600-megapixel camera, a near-infrared spectrometer, and a photometer, that was launched by the European Space Association (ESA) in July this year brought the curiosity of mapping the universe in the light again.
Objective
- The objective of the Euclid mission is to better understand dark energy and dark matter by accurately measuring the acceleration of the universe.
- To create a 3D map of the universe, the first of its kind.
Working
- Euclid will probe the history of the expansion of the universe and the formation of cosmic structures by measuring the redshift of galaxies out to a value of 2, which is equivalent to seeing back 10 billion years into the past.
- To achieve this, the Telescope will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distances from Earth and investigate the relationship between distance and redshift.
- The link between galactic shapes and their corresponding redshift will help to show how dark energy contributes to the increased acceleration of the universe.
- The methods employed exploit the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations, and measurement of galactic distances by spectroscopy.
- Dark energy is generally accepted as contributing to the increased acceleration of the expanding universe, so understanding this relationship will help to refine how physicists and astrophysicists understand it.
Significance of dark energy and dark matter
- The structure of galaxies, and by extension, of the universe, is dependent on the interplay of dark matter and dark energy.
- While the former is a major component of galaxies, the latter is the enigmatic driving force behind the universe’s accelerated expansion.
- NASA estimates dark energy at 68 per cent of the universe and dark matter at about 27 per cent.
How Euclid mission can unravel the mysteries of universe
- Like NASA’s James Webb Space telescope, ESA’s six-year Euclid mission, too, is geared to ferret into the mysteries of cosmic evolution, in particular into the expansion of the universe and the cohering forces that give it structure and form.
- The images are the first step towards creating a map of the origin story of the dark universe through observation of galaxies across a vast stretch of the sky.
Conclusion: In recent years, the study of astronomy has made remarkable strides. Even then, decoding dark matter and dark energy — their composition and their magnetic hold over the working of the cosmos — has been one of the major challenges facing astronomers. What these images have given a glimpse of are the ways that the horizons of human endeavour can be expanded by darkness illuminated.