Chinese researchers develop AI model for military use on back of Meta's Llama
01/11/2024 02:33
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Papers show China reworked Llama model for military tool
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China's top PLA linked Academy of Military Science
involved
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Meta says PLA 'unauthorised' to use Llama model
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Pentagon says it is monitoring competitors' AI
capabilities
By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang
Nov 1 (Reuters) - Top Chinese research institutions
linked to the People's Liberation Army have used Meta's publicly
available Llama model to develop an AI tool for potential
military applications, according to academic papers and
analysts.
In a June paper reviewed by Reuters, six Chinese researchers
from three institutions, including two under the People's
Liberation Army's (PLA) leading research body, the Academy of
Military Science (AMS), detailed how they had used an early
version of Meta's Llama as a base for what it calls "ChatBIT".
The researchers used the Llama 2 13B large language model
(LLM) that Meta META.O released in February 2023,
incorporating their own parameters to construct a
military-focused AI tool to gather and process intelligence, and
offer accurate and reliable information for operational
decision-making.
ChatBIT was fine-tuned and "optimised for dialogue and
question-answering tasks in the military field", the paper said.
It was found to outperform some other AI models that were
roughly 90% as capable as OpenAI's powerful ChatGPT-4. The
researchers didn't elaborate on how they defined performance or
specify whether the AI model had been put into service.
"It's the first time there has been substantial evidence
that PLA military experts in China have been systematically
researching and trying to leverage the power of open-source
LLMs, especially those of Meta, for military purposes," said
Sunny Cheung, associate fellow at the Jamestown Foundation who
specialises in China's emerging and dual use technologies
including AI.
Meta has embraced the open release of many of its AI
models, including Llama. It imposes restrictions on their use,
including a requirement that services with more than 700 million
users seek a license from the company.
Its terms also prohibit use of the models for
"military, warfare, nuclear industries or applications,
espionage" and other activities subject to U.S. defence export
controls, as well as for the development of weapons and content
intended to "incite and promote violence".
However, because Meta's models are public, the company
has limited ways of enforcing those provisions.
In response to Reuters questions, Meta cited its
acceptable use policy and said it took measures to prevent
misuse.
"Any use of our models by the People’s Liberation Army is
unauthorized and contrary to our acceptable use policy," Molly
Montgomery, Meta's director of public policy, told Reuters in a
phone interview.
The Chinese researchers include Geng Guotong and Li
Weiwei with the AMS's Military Science Information Research
Center and the National Innovation Institute of Defense
Technology, as well as researchers from the Beijing Institute of
Technology and Minzu University.
"In the future, through technological refinement, ChatBIT
will not only be applied to intelligence analysis, but also ...
strategic planning, simulation training and command
decision-making will be explored," the paper said.
China's Defence Ministry didn't reply to a request for
comment, nor did any of the institutions or researchers.
Reuters could not confirm ChatBIT's capabilities and
computing power, though the researchers noted that its model
incorporated only 100,000 military dialogue records, a
relatively small number compared with other LLMs.
"That's a drop in the ocean compared to most of these
models (that) are trained with trillions of tokens so … it
really makes me question what do they actually achieve here in
terms of different capabilities," said Joelle Pineau, a vice
president of AI Research at Meta and a professor of computer
science at McGill University in Canada.
The research comes amid a heated debate in U.S. national
security and technology circles about whether firms such as Meta
should make their models publicly available.
U.S. President Joe Biden in October 2023 signed an executive
order seeking to manage AI developments, noting that although
there can be substantial benefits to innovation," there were
also "substantial security risks, such as the removal of
safeguards within the model".
This week, Washington said it was finalising rules to curb
U.S. investment in artificial intelligence and other technology
sectors in China that could threaten national security.
Pentagon spokesman John Supple said the Department of
Defense recognised that open-source models had both benefits and
drawbacks, and that "we will continue to closely monitor and
assess competitors' capabilities".
'COOKIE JAR'
Some observers say China's strides in developing indigenous
AI, including setting up scores of research labs, have already
made it difficult to keep the country from narrowing the
technology gap with the United States.
In a separate academic paper reviewed by Reuters, two
researchers with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China
(AVIC) - which the United States has designated a firm with ties
to the PLA - described using Llama 2 for "the training of
airborne electronic warfare interference strategies".
China's use of Western-developed AI has also extended into
domestic security. A June paper described how Llama had been
used for "intelligence policing" to process large amounts of
data and enhance police decision-making.
The state-run PLA Daily published commentary in April on how
AI could help "accelerate the research and development of
weapons and equipment", help develop combat simulation and
improve military training efficiency".
"Can you keep them (China) out of the cookie jar? No, I
don't see how you can," William Hannas, lead analyst at
Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging
Technology (CSET), told Reuters. A 2023 paper by CSET found 370
Chinese institutions whose researchers had published papers
related to General Artificial Intelligence - helping drive
China's national strategy to lead the world in AI by 2030.
"There is too much collaboration going on between China's
best scientists and the U.S.' best AI scientists for them to be
excluded from developments," Hannas added.
(Additional reporting by Katie Paul in New York; Phil Stewart
in Washington, Eduardo Baptista in Beijing and Greg Torode in
Hong Kong; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
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