Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2023 · Martin Beraja、Andrew Kao、David Y. Yang、Noam Yuchtman
中文摘要
近期研究提出，人工智能（AI）技术与威权政体可能相互强化。我们以中国人脸识别AI为背景，检验这种相互强化关系。为此，我们收集了自2010年代初以来中国各地AI企业、政府采购合同以及社会动荡的全面数据。我们首先表明，威权统治者从AI中获益：地方社会动荡会促使政府加大对人脸识别AI的采购，将其作为一种新的政治控制技术；而AI采购的增加确实会抑制此后的社会动荡。我们进而表明，AI创新也受益于威权统治者对社会动荡的压制：获得政府合同的AI企业在面向政府和商业市场的创新上均有所增加，且更有可能出口其产品；未获得政府合同的AI企业则未出现可检测的负向溢出效应。综合来看，这些结果表明，中国体制下可能存在持续的AI创新：AI创新巩固了该体制，而该体制出于政治控制目的对AI的投资又会刺激进一步的前沿创新。
Abstract
Abstract Recent scholarship has suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) technology and autocratic regimes may be mutually reinforcing. We test for a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial-recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China since the early 2010s. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial-recognition AI as a new technology of political control, and increased AI procurement indeed suppresses subsequent unrest. We show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets and are more likely to export their products; noncontracted AI firms do not experience detectable negative spillovers. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.