00:00Subtitling by ZDF for funk, 2017
00:30One of its founders, Sam Altman, is considered the inventor of JetGPT, the symbol of the fourth industrial revolution of artificial intelligence, or AI for short.
00:42Computers create texts, images, videos and music, program and translate, and only a few companies master this technology.
00:52AI is at the heart of the most important global competition of our time, and it can do good and bad.
01:00Depending on what we make of it.
01:02Apple CEO Tim Cook said that what we all need to do is ensure that we use AI in a way that benefits humanity and does not harm it.
01:13AI can amplify the impact of a fake news campaign organized by a dictatorship, and it is at the center of global changes.
01:21A look at our maps.
01:24On the west coast of the USA, the San Francisco Bay in California is the cradle of the new industrial revolution triggered by AI.
01:34This is where most of the large IT companies are located.
01:37Google, Meta and its social networks, Apple, OpenAI and Anthropic.
01:43Further north, in Seattle, Microsoft and Amazon are headquartered.
01:47Using the vast amounts of data available to these companies, their models were developed through machine learning.
01:58In China, there are similar large technology companies.
02:02Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, Huawei and ByteDance, known for its video portal TikTok,
02:09as well as, more recently, DeepSeq with its chatbot of the same name.
02:15Because the latest technology in artificial intelligence consists of so-called generative AI models,
02:21that can automatically create content.
02:25Music, images, videos and texts, such as DeepSeq and ChatGPT.
02:31As mentioned, this comes from OpenAI and is the most widely used text writing tool worldwide.
02:37There were approximately 70 million hits per day this year, while DeepSeq only had 22 million.
02:44However, according to its developers, the development costs of the Chinese application should be much lower for the same performance.
02:53All major IT companies are developing their own chatbots, not only in the USA and China, but also in other countries.
03:00In France, Löscher, from the company Mistral AI, and in Germany, Luminis from Aleph Alpha.
03:08However, the amount of data they have and the investments they make are far less than in the US and China.
03:17Within ten years, the USA has invested 335 billion dollars in the development of AI.
03:23Next come China, Great Britain, Israel, Canada, Germany, India, France, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.
03:34But the Gulf States are also beginning to invest in the industry in order to no longer be solely dependent on oil and natural gas.
03:42These different resources are one reason for the immigration of skilled workers, especially to the United States.
03:48About half of the IT experts there come from other countries.
03:54They are lured by the prestige of the large internet companies and the high salaries they are offered.
04:01The flip side of the artificial intelligence coin is the hundreds of thousands of so-called click workers who prepare the data for the AI.
04:11They are very poorly paid and work for start-ups and multinational companies.
04:17Especially in India, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Kenya.
04:23Also noteworthy is the development in patent applications in the field of AI.
04:28In 2010, 40 percent of them came from the USA, but by 2023 this figure had dropped to only 14 percent.
04:36In contrast, China's share has increased from 10 to 70 percent, proof of Beijing's interest in the new technologies.
04:44Initially, artificial intelligence was primarily developed in the USA for military purposes.
04:51It is now used there for encrypting communications, controlling missiles and drones, and tracking targets.
04:59AI is now also being used in logistics, the financial sector, facial recognition for targeted advertising, and in scientific and medical research.
05:11Anywhere where massive data analysis is required.
05:14But above all, generative AI is making headlines, and these novel programs raise ethical questions.
05:23Political orientation in produced texts and censorship.
05:27Distribution of realistic fake videos, the famous deepfakes, as well as copyright infringement.
05:34This is because the programs rely on existing products to create the content.
05:39Texts, images, music.
05:42Mostly without obtaining permission beforehand and without paying the copyright holders.
05:47Real-life journalists and artists.
05:50In light of these challenges, the EU was the first institution to create a comprehensive legal framework to regulate the use of artificial intelligence.
06:01Conversely, at the AI summit in Paris in February 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned against excessive regulation on behalf of innovation.
06:12In doing so, he became the mouthpiece of the IT giants.
06:16"Whoever takes the lead in AI will become the ruler of the world," Vladimir Putin said in 2017.
06:25The battle between the tech giants for supremacy in the field is in full swing, including the so-called chip war.
06:34Since the rise of generative AI, the US company NVIDIA, which was previously relatively unknown, has become the company with the highest market capitalization in the world.
06:45Over 4 trillion dollars ahead of other internet giants.
06:50The company owes this success to its graphics processors.
06:54These were initially developed for computer games, but then proved to be important for machine learning programs all over the world.
07:04In 2022, President Biden decided to restrict the export of NVIDIA's most powerful chips to China.
07:12According to Washington, this was a response to security requirements, because such chips can be used in weapons.
07:22However, the decision led to heavy losses for NVIDIA, as China accounted for 13 percent of its revenue.
07:29Beijing accused Washington of trying to hinder China's technological development and banned the export of gallium and germanium to the USA.
07:40Both metals are used in the manufacture of electronic components, and China is their main producer.
07:46In 2025, Donald Trump then tightened the restrictions and banned NVIDIA from exporting its H20 chips.
07:56This less powerful version had been developed specifically for the Chinese market and adhered to US safety requirements.
08:04Finally, in August 2025, the US President made a surprising deal with Jensen Wang, the CEO of NVIDIA.
08:14This company is allowed to supply its less powerful chips to China if it transfers 15 percent of its profits to the US government.
08:21At the center of the trade war between China and the USA is also the Taiwanese company TSMC, the most important contract manufacturer of high-performance chips with a 70 percent share of the world market.
08:37It manufactures NVIDIA chips and is indispensable for the USA.
08:42However, Washington suspects it of having acted as an intermediary in the transfer of US technology to the Chinese company Huawei.
08:49This would have allowed them to make up for their technological deficit and produce chips whose performance is similar to that of NVIDIA.
08:58Finally, the threat of Chinese occupation of Taiwan remains, and the search for technological independence is prompting the USA to relocate all production to its own country.
09:10Due to the threat of import tariffs from Trump, TSMC built a new factory in the USA for direct delivery to NVIDIA and Apple.
09:21But the AI war is also about data centers.
09:26Here you can see a construction site of the Stargate project in Abilin, Texas, one of the huge future data centers.
09:33They are the crucial point of artificial intelligence, because most of the information from the internet or the cloud is stored in them.
09:45Such large data centers exist all over the world, but the United States is once again leading the way in global distribution.
09:52Donald Trump wants to expand this strategic advantage with Project Stargate.
09:59$500 billion is to be invested by OpenAI, Japan's Softbank and the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates.
10:09But the cloud, which is considered virtual, does have real-world consequences.
10:15The electricity consumption of data centers accounts for two percent of global electricity consumption.
10:19It is expected to be four percent by 2035.
10:24This is due to the exponential increase in data volumes and queries sent to search engines and chatbots.
10:32However, data centers also consume a lot of water for cooling, thus drawing on resources in regions that are already suffering from water shortages.
10:44So much for the global changes and competition surrounding artificial intelligence.
10:49One more word about Russia.
10:51We quoted Putin's statement that whoever controls AI will rule the world.
10:57But Russia is not a leader in this area.
11:01Since 2017, the USA has developed 161 large AI models, China 127, the EU countries 41 and Russia only three.
11:11Russia has primarily invested in the military rather than the civilian sector of AI and has fallen behind in the area of essential semiconductors.
11:22It has therefore been overtaken by other major powers in an important industry.
11:26On today's topic, we recommend Artificial Intelligence and the New Fascism by Rainer Mühlhoff, published by Reclam.
11:38That concludes today's edition. We'll see you again next week at the same place and time.
11:44Until then, you can find all our videos on arte.tv. You can also subscribe to our newsletter there.
11:50See you soon.
11:51Good bye.
