Justin Bassi is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Bec Shrimpton is director of The Sydney Dialogue, the institute's annual technology policy summit.
This article explores the perspective of past and present changing dynamics within government posture regarding authoritarian regimes that maliciously use critical tech manipulating markets in the private sector. The ambitions by the superpowers to establish Geo-political supremacy is driving National Security interest above social values. This leads to the misuse of critical technology, absence of standard rules based systems that could encourage knowledge economy by exchanging science and Innovation.
These unfavourable open conditions stifle generations of innovators to expand the possibilities for society. Instead they must contend with the threats of a potentially malicious cyberspace filled with hybrid threats and cyber security politics.
This is the new reality, which dominates the crossroads of east and western powers that is currently shaping the lexicon of foreign relations across the globe.
The article also shares some inroad between regions across Europe, U.S and Asia opening dialogue and finding agreements towards sharing and protecting intellectual protection and collaborating in research.
The Cold War was a competition over technology and a global contest over conflicting values.
Recognizing the intersection between the two, the West invested not just in getting ahead in decisive fields such as nuclear and space technologies but also in establishing rules, norms and standards based on its values. The results can be seen in standard-setting foundations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the five major United Nations space treaties.
The challenge for organisations which aim to work towards global standards recognition forums and treaties, is the approach of emerging regional powers as well as the superpower creating their own conditions which contest the aspiration of the common objectives. One major issue with the pursuit of geopolitical supremacy is the lack of standard rules-based systems. The absence of such systems enables countries to exploit technology for their own interests and undermines global cooperation. For instance, the use of offensive cyber operations by governments to achieve strategic and political objectives often goes unchecked, leading to a lack of accountability and transparency.
Furthermore, the focus on national security interests can also lead to a lack of exchange of science and innovation. Countries that prioritise their own interests may be less willing to share scientific and technological knowledge, hindering progress and creating barriers to innovation. This can result in a missed opportunity to foster a knowledge economy, where scientific and technological advancement can drive economic growth and development.
The misuse of technology has significant implications for society. For example, the use of artificial intelligence to develop autonomous weapons systems can lead to unintended consequences and undermine ethical values. The development of quantum computing, which has the potential to significantly advance scientific research and technological capabilities, can also be misused for destructive purposes.
Liberal democracies and open economies had won the day, and so we mistakenly assumed that rules, standards and democratic values for new technologies to come would take care of themselves. After all, these features were by then baked into the strategic and economic world order, including the tech sectors that the West dominated, weren't they?
If so, nobody told the authoritarian world, which was given a virtual monopoly on seizing the strategic advantages of technology while the West clung to the idea that governments should stay out of the private sector's way when it came to innovation.
While then-U.S. President Bill Clinton summed up the Western view in 2000 with his quip that controlling the internet was like "nailing Jell-O to a wall," China and Russia set about turning a threat into an opportunity.
Ten years later, as the West incorrectly judged that the Arab Spring had proved that the anarchy of social media could not be contained, China and Russia saw the potential to increase both domestic control and their reach into other nations. Today, we see their fundamentally different vision for technology realised in their enhanced oppression and censorship at home, their export of capabilities that expand authoritarianism globally and their exertion of influence in other countries' domestic politics.
It is time for the global community to act. Standards and norms based on values that protect essential human rights such as privacy and freedom from persecution urgently need to be built anew for the 21st century through an international effort, which should be led by democratic nations.
The West has been gradually waking up. Around five years ago, the potential of 5G telecommunications networks to power societies and economies forced Western governments to treat them as a national security issue and to start rethinking the geostrategic implications of critical technologies.
Dual-use technologies such as facial and gait recognition, which can be used legitimately by police to solve crimes but can also be used by authoritarian states to oppress minorities such as the Uyghurs of western China, have prompted renewed debate about the ethical use of technology.
Some individual countries have begun to take, or at least discuss, action, including by restricting or prohibiting certain Chinese technology platforms or apps to prevent data-harvesting, malign influence or overdependence on unreliable partners.
But these are global issues that cannot be dealt with nation by nation. Relying on domestic action in the digital and artificial intelligence age is like playing a game of whack-a-mole on an irreparably leaky boat. It is not much use for Australia, Europe or the U.S. to develop domestic standards that do not apply or cannot be applied to China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.
For example, we need to improve the global tech landscape so that regimes that use critical technologies in malign ways cannot import them, are obstructed from selling their own versions to other authoritarians, and cannot create monopolies on which the rest of us become dependent.
Why, for instance, should bleeding edge technology companies which produce the very latest innovations and are based in open democratic societies be able to operate in authoritarian surveillance states that have domestic laws and national interests at complete odds with the companies' homelands?
Do tech companies, scientists and innovators understand that by working in and with authoritarian countries, they are placing at risk the very society and system that enabled their success in the first place?
Above all, we need agreed standards and norms on healthy uses of technology -- ones that enhance welfare and prosperity and preserve human dignity and freedom.
There was some welcome news last month in U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan's announcement that the U.S. and European Union had struck an agreement on working together on research to drive responsible advances in AI.
Yet at the same time, we are seeing partnerships form between Iran, China and Russia on drone technology while U.S. electric vehicle leader Tesla sets up shop in the heartland of slave labour in Xinjiang, China.
Governments, corporations, technology CEOs and innovators, strategists and experts must work harder together to establish strategies to harness the good that technology offers while mitigating the risks through forums such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's new annual technology policy summit, The Sydney Dialogue.
There is a key opportunity this year. With Japan chairing the Group of Seven, the issue of tech standards, and their importance to economic security, will likely be front and centre in discussions.
India, along with countries such as Australia and South Korea, which want responsible standards, should be invited by Japan to be G-7 observers. Policy settings could then be taken to the Group of 20 by a strong group of nations while that forum is chaired by India.
Furthermore, recognising the timing of the reopening phase of China and rest of the pacific, will generate forward looking momentum; towards new initiatives and open forums establishing multilateral treaties amongst challenging powers across the Indo-Pacific. It is essential to be consistent and to encourage countries like China and North Korea to participate and share in the knowledge economy by exchanging science and innovation. This requires the establishment of standard rules-based systems and treaties that can stimulate open sharing and avoid a technology arms race for regional Pacific supremacy or global domination.
We cannot lose any more time. Already, key players, from startups and tech giants to authoritarian regimes, are applying technology without agreed rules or making them up as they go.
Technology is shaping the future of humankind and, once again, technological competition is reflecting an opposing set of values and interests. Collective global action is necessary and needs to begin with dialogue.
Governments, the tech sector and civil society must find ways to make progress on standards, rules and norms so that choice, freedom and security are not collateral damage in the technology race.
