Taiwanese drought jeopardizes global chip supply, Biden orders review of critical supply chains, and AI perseveres on Mars

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Worth Knowing

Drought in Taiwan Stresses Chip Supply Already Under Strain: With a drought depleting its reservoirs, Taiwan asked companies to reduce water usage, raising concerns that the country’s semiconductor producers could be forced to limit output. Taiwan is home to several of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers; a drought-induced slowdown would add to a chip shortage that has seen carmakers slash production and sent consumer electronics prices soaring. Taiwan’s chipmakers are some of the country’s biggest water consumers; in 2019, TSMC — the world’s largest contract chipmaker — used more than 10% of the northern region’s daily supply. At present, Taiwanese chipmakers say they have no immediate plans to scale back production, but concerns remain that this drought could be a harbinger of things to come. While Taiwan’s dry winters are typically offset by major storms during typhoon season, last year brought no typhoons for the first time in 56 years. As climate change alters global weather patterns, some observers worry such droughts — and their widespread consequences through global supply chains — could become more common.
Another Messy Divorce — Google Fires AI Ethics Researcher: On February 19, Margaret Mitchell, formerly the co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, announced she had been fired by the Silicon Valley tech giant. As we wrote last month, Mitchell was suspended in January for using an automated program to search her company email account, reportedly looking for evidence of discrimination against her former co-lead, Timnit Gebru, whose December departure was similarly acrimonious. Google confirmed in a statement to Axios that Mitchell’s firing was related to the January suspension. The ouster of Gebru, a researcher known for her work on algorithmic bias and her advocacy related to ethics and diversity in AI, sparked controversy both inside Google — hundreds of employees signed an open letter supporting her — and externally, with observers wondering what her departure meant for the future of AI ethics research at one of the largest AI companies in the world. Google’s firing of Mitchell, together with the unexpected news from a day earlier that the company would be restructuring its “responsible AI” teams under a new “center of expertise,” appears to have prompted renewed concerns.
IBM’s Rumored Sale of Watson Health Highlights AI’s Healthcare Difficulties: IBM is reportedly looking to sell its healthcare division, Watson Health, a potential sign of the difficulties facing AI companies trying to break into healthcare. While Watson Health has managed to bring in roughly a billion dollars in annual revenue, it is reportedly struggling to turn a profit. In many ways, IBM’s problems mirror those of its rival Google, whose DeepMind — like IBM’s Watson — gained fame for its victories against humans in games of skill (Watson on Jeopardy! and DeepMind in Go). While DeepMind has produced some revolutionary healthcare breakthroughs, it too has struggled to turn a profit. Observers say the rumored selloff highlights the difficulties of applying AI to healthcare, especially when the goals — like curing cancer and other chronic diseases — become too ambitious. For now, experts say AI may be better suited to addressing specific problems in disciplines such as radiology and pathology, or streamlining healthcare business processes.  
Government Updates

NSCAI Releases Final Report: On Monday, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence released its final report with dozens of recommendations to the president and Congress on the future of U.S. AI strategy. Highlights include:
  • A warning that the U.S. military could be at a competitive disadvantage within the next decade if it does not accelerate its AI adoption. The report recommends laying the foundation for widespread AI integration by 2025, comprising a DOD-wide digital ecosystem, a technically literate workforce, and more efficient business practices aided by AI.
  • A recommendation that the White House establish a new “Technology Competitiveness Council,” led by the vice president, to develop a comprehensive technology strategy and oversee its implementation.
  • A recommendation that the U.S. military explore using autonomous weapons systems, provided their use is authorized by human operators.
  • A proposal to establish a new Digital Service Academy and a civilian National Reserve to cultivate domestic AI talent.
  • A call to provide $35 billion in federal investment and incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
  • A recommendation to double non-defense AI R&D funding annually until it reaches $32 billion per year, and to triple the number of National AI Research Institutes.
  • A call for reformed export controls, coordinated with allies, on key technologies such as high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
  • A recommendation that Congress pass a second National Defense Education Act and reform the U.S. immigration system to attract and retain AI students and workers from abroad.
While none of the report’s recommendations are legally binding, it has reportedly been well-received by key members of both parties. The commission’s 756-page report cites 21 CSET publications. See the “Citations” section below for a complete list.

Responding to Chip Shortage, Biden Orders Review of Tech Supply Chain: Last week, President Biden issued an executive order directing four federal departments to conduct 100-day supply chain reviews of critical goods and technologies, including semiconductors and rare earth elements. In his remarks announcing the order, Biden, holding a computer chip for emphasis, highlighted the recent semiconductor shortage that has affected wide swathes of the economy. While the order does not call for specific policy changes, Biden said he would push Congress to provide $37 billion in funding for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. White House officials said the president was referring to measures included in the recent National Defense Authorization Act that authorized federal incentives for domestic chipmaking but did not appropriate specific funds. In addition to the 100-day reviews, the order directs a number of departments to submit reports within the next year on the critical supply chains under their purview. The order specifically directs the Pentagon to highlight “areas where civilian supply chains are dependent upon competitor nations” in its report.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Lands With Help of AI: NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars last month, outfitted with several AI systems that will help carry out its mission. While its predecessor Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, had some autonomous capabilities, Perseverance incorporates a number of new and upgraded systems that make it the most AI-enabled rover NASA has ever deployed. One such system, Terrain Relative Navigation, proved its value during the successful landing: it compared real-time sensor data to a map of the landing area, identified potential hazards in the landing zone, and autonomously steered to avoid them. Now that Perseverance is safely on the ground, it will use an autonomous navigation system that will help make it faster than previous rovers. Perseverance also features an improved version of the AEGIS intelligent targeting system that Curiosity used to aim its ChemCam tool and fire its laser spectrometer.

Dems Introduce Immigration Bill: On February 18, Congressional Democrats introduced a major immigration bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, proposed by President Biden on his first day in office and designed to overhaul the U.S. immigration system. While the centerpiece of the bill is an eight-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, it also contains several sections relevant to the U.S. technology workforce, including:
  • Sec. 3401 exempts doctoral STEM graduates of U.S. universities from yearly numerical caps on employment-based green cards.
  • Sec. 3402 exempts from the yearly numerical caps long-backlogged green card applicants, those waiting 10 years or more, as well as family members of all green card applicants.
  • Sec. 3403 eliminates the per-country cap on employment-based immigrants.
Observers note the bill will be difficult to pass in a divided Senate without significant changes. Axios reported, meanwhile, that the Democratic-controlled House may also lack the votes to pass the bill.

In Translation
CSET’s translations of significant foreign language documents on AI

PRC Patent Documents: CSET has translated a pair of Chinese government documents pertaining to its intellectual property policies.
PRC College’s “Internet Commentator” Guidelines: Notice on Establishing Internet Commentator Teams. These guidelines, published by a vocational college in China’s Jiangxi Province, describe the qualifications for and duties of “internet commentators.” These individuals, who are typically Communist Party members and can be either teachers or students at the college, work part-time monitoring the campus computer network, reinforcing propaganda messages and censoring “harmful” content. Although these guidelines are specific to this one college, it is highly likely that other Chinese colleges and universities have similar teams of online commentators.

What We’re Reading

Report: 2021 AI Index Report, Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (March 2021)

Report: Keeping Score: A New Approach to Geopolitical Forecasting, Michael C. Horowitz, Julia Ciocca, Lauren Kahn and Christian Ruhl, Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania (February 2021)

Article: First Chinese Province Scraps Residency Restrictions, Zhang Wanqing, Sixth Tone (February 2021)

Article: China’s Counter-Strategy to American Export Controls in Integrated Circuits, Douglas B. Fuller, China Leadership Monitor (March 2021)

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