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China may match or beat America in AI
- microcolonel 9y agoAnd given happenings like the death in captivity of Liu Xiaobo, that should scare the living hell out of you.
- 86go 9y ago...looks like the first prototype of 1984 will go live in China. First of all Chinese should be worried but to my constant surprise many don't.
- pavanred 9y agoMany simply don't know. For instance, Liu Xiaobo was banned from public speaking and it was banned to publish his writing. I won't be surprised if he was better known outside China than inside.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jmknoll 9y agoNo idea why this is being downvoted. It's a very salient point. The death of a nobel laureate while in captivity as a political prisoner last occurred in Germany in 1938. Much as people should have been scared by German rocket and tank tech in the 30's, they should be scared of Chinese AI tech today. its not an unreasonable assumption that this technology is going to be used for things that run counter to the values of many people in US, with the enhancement of the domestic security apparatus and control of the media chief among them.
- some1else 9y agoLots of domain experts casually mention that there's nothing defensible in a well trained model. If that's what gets you going: Russia could also match or beat America in AI.
- kyleschiller 9y agoThe article is subtitled "Its deep pool of data may let it lead in artificial intelligence" for a reason, you can't just pull a "well trained" model out of thin air, and proprietary data is absolutely defensible.
- visarga 9y agoYou'd think China would have an advantage here. But the kind of special data only Google and FB have is mostly related to ads and people profiles. That's not the kind of data you need to advance AI. Instead, what is needed is user labeled images, videos, text, speech and of course, simulations (games, VR) for virtual robotics and reinforcement learning agents. These kinds of data and simulations are open sourced and growing. Once there is a sufficient collection of training data, it's cheap to train your neural nets. Even today, there is much more data than scientists care to use. For example, ImageNet is over 1TB, but a smaller portion of it is used routinely (it has 21841 topics but usually just 1000 of them are used in research papers). So it's not the lack of images that's keeping them. China would have no advantage here. Everyone has approximately the same level, the best paper of last year is the average of this year. That's about AI in general - but regarding self driving cars and ads Google is cooking in secret so it might be a little more ahead.
- cat199 9y ago> But the kind of special data only Google and FB have is mostly related to ads and people profiles. That's not the kind of data you need to advance AI. > Instead, what is needed is user labeled images, videos, text, speech. umm: google image search, all html embedded/related metadata, adwords itself serving as a refined metadata/tagging and ontology database building engine, recaptcha 'how many buildings are in this picture' puzzles, android debug settings where things are uploaded, google drive cloud storage, gmail, the google speaker gizmo and voice activated phone agent, google voice voip, google chat, maps annotations to pictures/gps coordinates, etc etc etc and yadda yadda yadda... not sure what else you need as far as those sources..
- brndnmtthws 9y agoThey've got a lot more people, so it's just a matter of time. That, and there aren't any real "trade secrets" when it comes to AI. It's all just computer code, and anyone with an Internet connection can teach themselves how to use Wikipedia and run TensorFlow.
- kyleschiller 9y ago'It's all just computer code' Are you saying no software has trade secrets? Sure, you can go through some tutorials and learn to build a CNN, or even read more recent research papers and hit bleeding-edge ImageNet benchmarks, but nothing currently public is going to get you close to Google's SDC. You can't pretend this is just about people either, India's at 1.3B and they're far from becoming a world leader.
- j7ake 9y agoThis really depends on what is the driver of the current rise of neural networks and other similar machine learning techniques... whats the contributions of data and method toward the new improvements in performance? If more data is main contribution I would venture to say that China can indeed beat USA.
- computerex 9y agoIt's a combination of recent innovations and more data. Having access to more annotated/labeled data has definitely propelled the state of the art in some disciplines like machine vision.
- brndnmtthws 9y agoMost of the time, secrets and other forms of protectionism are techniques used for covering up incompetence, or hiding bad behaviour.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throwawayecchai 9y agoChinese Government is all over the Silicon Valley these days trying to get into US AI developments, using all sorts of nefarious tricks. A case in point. There is a conference, SYNC 2017, in Computer History Museum tomorrow (July 14th), organized by Pingwest, which itself seems like a Chinese Gov. front if you look at the team. They have several good speakers, and some Chinese, Gov fronted, fake VC types. Till 2 days ago, it was titled SYNC 2017 - Unbounded: Building Across Borders. Yesterday, it's title was changed to SYNC 2017 - US China AI Summit It is pretty clear that if they had gone with the US China AI Summit in the beginning several of their speakers may not have agreed, but now it is too late for anyone to change mind. Edited: To change from "Chinese" to "Chinese Gov." to clarify I'm referring to the Chinese Gov and not Chinese people
- throwawayecchai 9y agoWould love for the down voters to explain why.
- scottLobster 9y agoYou described Chinese people organizing and attending an open technical conference with permission, and offer the unproven statement that several speakers would have refused to speak if they had known just how "Chinese" it was going to be ahead of time. I'm not sure how those speakers couldn't just cancel, sure they'd lose any speaking fees but I've never heard of lock-in speaking contracts for conferences. Or if they care so much they could just modify their speeches to not supply anything of value. Or perhaps they should have done their homework ahead of time. In any case I'd hardly call it a "nefarious trick" regardless of who was doing it. I'm hesitant to throw out "racist", but you seem to be leaning that way...
- maerF0x0 9y agoEnglish language makes it hard to separate Anti-Chinese government (Nationalism?) from Anti-Chinese people (Racism) . I think most of these comments are referring to the former, a dislike/distrust for the PRC government, not Chinese people.
- kyleschiller 9y agoIf you're going to comment about the "Chinese takeover" please take 2 minutes to at least read the first paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril 'The Yellow Peril (also Yellow Terror and Yellow Spectre) is a racist color-metaphor that is integral to the xenophobic theory of colonialism: that the peoples of East Asia are a danger to the Western world. As a psycho-cultural perception of menace from the East, fear of the Yellow Peril was more racial than national, a fear derived, not from concern with a specific source of danger, from any one country or people, but from a vaguely ominous, existential fear of the vast, faceless, nameless horde of yellow people opposite the Western world. As a form of xenophobia, the Yellow Terror is the white race's fear of the rising tide of colored people from the Orient.[1]' It's entirely possible that you have a valid point to make, and maybe it's even an interesting and important one, but maybe also take a second to consider if it might be motivated by racist tropes.
- Will_Do 9y agoWhat a strange comment. Why do you think this has anything to do with racism? Is anything claiming an Asian country is doing better than a white country Yellow Peril? If not, why is this an instance of it?
- seppin 9y ago> What a strange comment. Indeed. Textbook projection
- bitcuration 9y agoI don't see how this article can be related to that Wikipedia. it's overly reactive and exhibited a lack of self confidence from the people felt offended.
- eternalcode 9y agoI am offended by your comment. So, maybe you should also please take a second to consider if it might be motivated by racist tropes.
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- rrggrr 9y ago70% of the US budget is inexorably allocated to entitlements, interest on debt, and welfare. The rubicon of 100% US Debt-to GDP will soon be crossed. Many US states are hanging on to solvency by a thread. Corporations and banks have sequestered hundreds of billions in cash waiting for signs of US fiscal stability. And what does the media want to talk about? Russian spies and Chinese A.I. Rome burns and everyone is asleep or mad with partisan fever.
- Sargos 9y agoYou are just fear mongering. USA's debt to GDP ratio is not a problem for our economy or anything else and won't be for a very long time. The US economy is growing fast enough that the debt-to-GDP has no effect on our stability as we could pay it off if we wanted to and do indeed have plans for this sort of thing. Also most of our debt is actually owned by US citizens which also helps make this a non issue. There's a reason nobody credible thinks the sky is falling. It's not. Helpful article: https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-debt-to-gdp-ratio-1978993 https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-debt-to-gdp-ratio-197...
- rrggrr 9y agoDebt suppresses growth above 85% of GDP. At current levels it reduces net purchasing power. It depletes tangible foreign reserves. It causes legislative gridlock. It distorts the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. It also doesn't sit in isolation. The BLS statistics add another 200 or so percent for about 300% debt-to-GDP when you include household, state and muni debt. Unlike China, the US citizen lender argument isn't helpful. US debt holders are free to move their money into other assets. The only argument in favor of the current debt levels is that no other nation can float enough liquidity to compete with US debt. For that reason alone the sky isn't falling.
- yequalsx 9y agoMedicare and Social Security are not entitlements. Social Security is a pension system that we pay into. There are some exceptions to this for Social Security but a large majority of the funds payed out are to people who paid into the system. Medicare is an insurance system for the elderly. We all pay into it. Social Security and Medicare happen to be government run and there aren't options to opt out of them but they are not welfare or entitlement programs. The shortcomings for Social Security are easy to fix. I don't know about Medicare and it's actuarial prospects. Crossing the 100% debt/gdp ratio is not a Rubicon. Lots of countries have done this and been none the worse for having done so. The U.S. famously exceeded 100% debt/gdp ratio during WWII. It was able to come down from that. Current debt obligations for the U.S. are in low interest bonds. The borrowing of the money has not crippled the nation. Spending it poorly on stupid wars, a massive surveillance/security apparatus in the form of DOD, CIA, etc. has been a problem. Currently, as a percent of GDP taxes in the U.S. are quite low. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...
- ChuckMcM 9y agoHere I was looking for the Dr. Strangelove equivalent of the "AI Gap" :-) Given that in the next four years it is likely that more than half of the PhDs awarded by top US schools are awarded to foreign nationals[1], and our current government policy is to restrict immigration as much as possible, we are on a path to insuring that soon the world will have a much better pool of talent to draw on to do the research than the US will. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/07/13/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/KF_Report.pdf https://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/20...
- Leader2light 9y agoImmigration is not the solution. Do you have any idea how restrictive China is on immigration?
- justicezyx 9y agoThe point is that Top Chinese PhDs got degrees from Top us schools are forced back. Not that immigration are needed for China.
- flyinglizard 9y agoThe point is that educating the best minds of the world and then expelling them to their origin countries is not a wise practice.
- iamcurious 9y agoIt is a very wise practice from a soft power perspective.
- yohui 9y agoChina also restricts democracy and access to the internet, but that's not to say the US wouldn't be harmed by a move in that direction. China has different strengths and weaknesses; the US would be ill advised to give up its own strengths.
- dilemma 9y ago
- balls187 9y agoHeard this on Economist Radio. Competition is good.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y agoI guess it's worth asking - what will the differences between Western and Eastern AI be, if any? Will/can cultural differences in philosophy make their way into competing AI via Conway's Law?
- onetokeoverthe 9y agoWake up! It's ALL state owned Communism!
- dang 9y agoWe've banned this account for political trolling. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.
- onetokeoverthe 9y agoWake up! It's ALL state owned Communism!
- bitcuration 9y agoMostly the advantage that China has, other than probably a large pool of math educated engineers and abundant data thanks to China's aggressive surveillance, is that things would be unethical or hard to move forwarded under current regulation, would be much easier in China. Ironically, underlining in this article is that acknowledgement of such often unethical or act in doubt are perhaps essential and critical to AI's future development. To that, China is at a clear advantage than America, and the rest of civilized west world. A strong economy is also necessary to propel the development, or Russia would also be at a advantage similar to China's, or North Karea's. But only China has the economy incentivization similar to West's.
- justicezyx 9y agoSpot on. Among all the things, this is the fundamental advantage China has over other nations. Chinese government can do things that no other are capable.
- awkwarddaturtle 9y ago> To that, China is at a clear advantage than America, and the rest of civilized west world. "Civilized"? Come on, the civilized "west" was performing human experiments. If china is doing it, then so are we. Lets stop with the hubris. We aren't civilized. We are savages just like any other savages.
- ausjke 9y agofirst, it catches up with economics, second, the rising middle class demand for more democracy to upgrade the existing political system, smoothly hopefully, and last they begin to beat US all around, purely due to the population and an education first tradition, with east-asia's above-average IQ as the base and the much-better economy as the booster.
- tmsldd 9y agoGreat news for NVidia.
- 23443463453 9y agoWell, China both educates its own people instead of foreign national freeloaders ... and it sends Chinese people to the USA in order to pick up on AI and other technologies ... and they have been digitally stealing, robbing, and pilfering everything that they can get their hands on to launch themselves hundreds of years into the future in terms of technological advancement and development. Why develop things when you can just steal them from others, right? But at least the communist dictatorship of China that has been using ideological subversion along with their cold war allies the Russians and Mexicans, to make Americans both hate themselves and throw open the gates to antithetical minded people, will surely be as benevolent and generous and self-sacrificing as the USA has been. They are communist after all, and we know that communism works really well due to all the examples of it working really well.
- gsdfg4gsdg 9y agoOf course they will. Americans have turned on each other in their period of greatest economic vulnerability, basically self-destructing while the Chinese government gladly hands out 5x your research grant from elsewhere to do that research in China. America's running on desirability to high-skill immigrants and existing ecosystems, both of which are fading fast. NIH is halving budgets while China is multiplying them by 10. The West is fucked, I just wish I spoke Chinese.
- mark_l_watson 9y agoI up-voted you, even though we disagree a bit. A friend went to work in Hong Kong years ago because it was easier to get long term AI research money than in the USA. I think he is still happy with the support that he gets. A little off topic: here in the USA, every medium and large company seems to be morphing into an 'AI company' which I think is generally a good thing since individually they can all take advantage of control over their own application stacks and data sources. Many people concentrate on the advantages of huge companies like Google/Microsoft/Facebook in AI development, but there is plenty of opportunity for smaller companies to enhance their own systems with machine learning.
- crb002 9y agoThey are building chips without the x86 albatross. The US State Department is to blame for the phoenix by cutting off their Intel MIC supply. They have enough labor to do supervised learning on a grand scale that the U.S. can't compete with. The U.S. can't compete.
- tabtab 9y agoThat means when AI hits a wall like the "AI Winter" of the 1980's, China will be stuck with a big bill as the bubble pops all over their faces.
- mark_l_watson 9y agoRespectfully, I disagree. I have worked in the field of AI since the early 1980s, and experienced the 'AI winter' which was a natural reaction to over-hyping of technologies like expert systems that required too much manual effort to write and maintain. Deep learning applications are developed with less manual effort and produce much more value. The 'AI world' is very different now than in the 1980s.
- dilemma 9y agodang needs to do something about the rampant xenophobia that is emergent in every thread about anything China. Unless that's the YC party line.
- amai 9y agoChina may match or beat America in everything. (Law of big numbers)
- sachamps 9y agoChina WILL beat America as long as half of the U.S. praises FOX News and is willing to privatize education.