OpenAI’s “12 days of shipmas” tell us a lot about the AI arms race

The Chat

Every week, I talk to one of MIT Technology Review’s journalists to go behind the scenes of a story they are working on. This week, I hit up Amanda Silverman, our features and investigations editor, about our big story on the way the war in Ukraine is reshaping the tech sector in eastern Europe.

Mat: Amanda, we published a story this week from Peter Guest that’s about the ways civilian tech is being repurposed for the war in Ukraine. I could be wrong, but ultimately I think it showed how warfare has truly changed thanks to inexpensive, easily-built tech products. Is that right?

Amanda: I think that’s pretty spot on. Though maybe it’s more accurate to say, less expensive, more-easily-built tech products. It’s all relative, right? Like, the retrofitted consumer drones that have been so prevalent in Ukraine over the past few years are vastly cheaper than traditional weapons systems, and what we’re seeing now is that lots of other tech that was initially developed for civilian purposes—like, Pete reported on a type of scooter—are being sent to the front. And again, these are much, much cheaper than traditional weaponry. And they can be developed and shipped out really quickly.

The other thing Pete found was that this tech is being quickly reworked to respond to battlefield feedback—like that scooter has been customized to carry NATO standard-sized bullet boxes. I can’t imagine that happening in the old way of doing things.

Mat: It’s move fast and (hope not to) break things, but for war…. There is also this other, much scarier idea in there, which is that the war is changing, maybe has changed, Eastern Europe’s tech sector. What did Pete find is happening there?

Amanda: So a lot of the countries neighboring Ukraine are understandably pretty freaked out by what happened there and how the country had to turn on a dime to respond to the full-scale invasion by Russia. At the same time, Pete found that a lot of people in these countries, particularly in Latvia and particularly leading tech startups, have been inspired by how Ukrainians mobilized for the war and they’re trying to sort of get ahead of the potential enemy and get ready for a conflict within their borders. It’s not all scary, to be clear. It’s arguably somewhat thrilling to see all this innovation happening so quickly and to have some of the more burdensome red tape removed.

Mat: Okay so Russia’s neighbors are freaked out, as you say, understandably. Did anything about this story freak you out?

Amanda: Yeah, it’s impossible to ignore that there is a huge, scary risk here, too: as these companies develop new tech for war, they have an unprecedented opportunity to test it out in Ukraine without going through the traditional development and procurement process—which can be slow and laborious, sure, but also includes a lot of important testing, checks and balances, and more to prevent fraud and lots of other abuses and dangers. Like, Pete nods to how Clearview AI was deploying its tech to identify Russian war dead, which is scary in and of itself and also may violate the Geneva Conventions.