9 ms·

I just finished reading 'AI Superpowers' and I hardly understand now if US has any single chance to compete with China's Tech fairly, openly, democratically, wi

I just finished reading 'AI Superpowers' and I hardly understand now if US has any single chance to compete with China's Tech fairly, openly, democratically, with respect.

tdaltonc 8y ago
You should go back and read that book much more skeptically. That whole book is a PR piece from a VC trying to generate deal flow. Scratch below the surface and there's not much substance to his 3 big arguments. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- elkos 8y ago
  Well, thank you this was a pretty good read. I'm volunteering in a small nonprofit and do believe we work on interesting stuff but when I try to reach out to the press I feel they are totally uninterested. (Most of the time... The state/public TV usually is more open to us)
varjag 8y ago
Chinese tech is impotent, so there's a fair chance for America.
- visarga 8y ago
  In regard to AI, Chinese researchers can efficiency apply everything that has been published and can even make valuable original research, though not at the same volume and level as US.
  - varjag 8y ago
    True, but you can say that about nearly any developed country out there.
  - novaRom 8y ago
    >> though not at the same volume and level as US for now
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  I can't agree with you. I am in the USA. I had dinner last night with several people talking about starting up an AI/medical company. When I got home, I found companies in China that were already shipping similar products to what we had just been talking about at dinner, just as possible ideas. My fields are NLP and deep learning, and from my perspective, research papers coming out of China have been innovative and high quality in the areas I am interested in. That is to take nothing away from the spectacular NLP deep learning models that Facebook and Google have recently been publishing and sharing. Just because we have very good tech, that does not mean that our competitors don't also have advanced technologies.
  - varjag 8y ago
    It's fine. We're not in China, we have room for disagreement.
    - simmanian 8y ago
      I'm not pro-China by any means, but I think your comment leaves very little room for any civil discussion.
      - varjag 8y ago
        Perhaps you are right. My post was meant to be tongue in cheek but sounded mean spirited. My apologies to mark_l_watson.
fifnir 8y ago
> fairly, openly, democratically, with respect. Why would the US change its modus operandi ? :P
dfgert 8y ago
What makes you believe US completes fairly and openly? Don't you see news on China import embargo and capture of it's executives.
- zelon88 8y ago
  You also don't see TMobile stealing robots from China or Facebook luring Baidu developers to "interviews" for interrogation.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - coldtea 8y ago
    You don't?
    - elefanten 8y ago
      No, you don't. Zero examples come to mind. Which US tech companies have literally attempted/stolen proprietary lab tech from a Chinese tech co? Are brain drain interviews the same as being invited back to your native country for a job interview and being detained? And that's just comparing magnitude, not even talking about frequency.
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  I don't think that novaRom was not saying that we compete fairly. I read novaRom's comment to say that we can't win if we play fairly. I also read 'AI Superpowers' and I agree with the book's premise that long term China will win the 'AI war' economic competition because their society allows broad use of data and since they are more of an online Internet-connected society they have much more data to use for training deep learning systems. China is also throwing a ton of money at supporting startup AI companies. I pains me to be too critical of my own country (the USA) but I think we are really making bad mistakes by: 1) not sufficiently supporting research at the government level. 2) turning our students into life-long debt slaves with student loans. 3) screwing up our long term economic and social health by, for example, not providing free meals to poor kids in schools (one of the very cost effective ways to get a more educated work force - kids who are hungry in school tend to not do well). 4) stop allowing Facebook/Google/etc. unfettered use of private data while at the same time not figuring out a way to get more training data to people doing basic reseaerch.
eastendguy 8y ago
...in what area is China actually leading? Catching up and leading require two very different skill sets.
- thrwawayw434 8y ago
  Do you follow ML ? A lot of big-impact papers in Computer vision has come directly from mainland China and Hong Kong. MSRA, CUHK, Sensetime, and Baidu have made quite a few advances in the field.DMLC a group of members composed mostly of Chinese students basically wrote things like MXNET and Xgboost. Granted most of these are collaborative ventures, but calling China 'catching up' at this stage is ignorant.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - m0zg 8y ago
    And yet nearly all SOTA research is done in the US. Eventually folks in China realize they could easily be making $500K+/yr at FANG and be financially independent in 10 years, so they leave for the much, much greener US pastures, and stay here.
    - withhighprod 8y ago
      Lol look how many went back after Trump
- coldtea 8y ago
  Here's an example, these are the golden standard. Which would be the US equivalent? https://www.dji.com/gr/products/drones https://www.dji.com/gr/products/drones Here's another -- better than Google by a wide margin: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290215/huawei-p30-pro-camera-night-low-light-mode-photos https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290215/huawei-p30-pro-ca...
  - eastendguy 8y ago
zachguo 8y ago
The US has overwhelming technological advantages over China, breakthroughs in AI still largely come from the US. China has more data and state support though.

I just finished reading 'AI Superpowers' and I hardly understand now if US has any single chance to compete with China's Tech fairly, openly, democratically, with respect.

tdaltonc 8y ago

You should go back and read that book much more skeptically. That whole book is a PR piece from a VC trying to generate deal flow. Scratch below the surface and there's not much substance to his 3 big arguments. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

elkos 8y ago
Well, thank you this was a pretty good read. I'm volunteering in a small nonprofit and do believe we work on interesting stuff but when I try to reach out to the press I feel they are totally uninterested. (Most of the time... The state/public TV usually is more open to us)

varjag 8y ago

Chinese tech is impotent, so there's a fair chance for America.

visarga 8y ago
In regard to AI, Chinese researchers can efficiency apply everything that has been published and can even make valuable original research, though not at the same volume and level as US.
- varjag 8y ago
  True, but you can say that about nearly any developed country out there.
- novaRom 8y ago
  >> though not at the same volume and level as US for now
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I can't agree with you. I am in the USA. I had dinner last night with several people talking about starting up an AI/medical company. When I got home, I found companies in China that were already shipping similar products to what we had just been talking about at dinner, just as possible ideas. My fields are NLP and deep learning, and from my perspective, research papers coming out of China have been innovative and high quality in the areas I am interested in. That is to take nothing away from the spectacular NLP deep learning models that Facebook and Google have recently been publishing and sharing. Just because we have very good tech, that does not mean that our competitors don't also have advanced technologies.
- varjag 8y ago
  It's fine. We're not in China, we have room for disagreement.
  - simmanian 8y ago
    I'm not pro-China by any means, but I think your comment leaves very little room for any civil discussion.
    - varjag 8y ago
      Perhaps you are right. My post was meant to be tongue in cheek but sounded mean spirited. My apologies to mark_l_watson.

fifnir 8y ago

> fairly, openly, democratically, with respect. Why would the US change its modus operandi ? :P

dfgert 8y ago

What makes you believe US completes fairly and openly? Don't you see news on China import embargo and capture of it's executives.

zelon88 8y ago
You also don't see TMobile stealing robots from China or Facebook luring Baidu developers to "interviews" for interrogation.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago
  You don't?
  - elefanten 8y ago
    No, you don't. Zero examples come to mind. Which US tech companies have literally attempted/stolen proprietary lab tech from a Chinese tech co? Are brain drain interviews the same as being invited back to your native country for a job interview and being detained? And that's just comparing magnitude, not even talking about frequency.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I don't think that novaRom was not saying that we compete fairly. I read novaRom's comment to say that we can't win if we play fairly. I also read 'AI Superpowers' and I agree with the book's premise that long term China will win the 'AI war' economic competition because their society allows broad use of data and since they are more of an online Internet-connected society they have much more data to use for training deep learning systems. China is also throwing a ton of money at supporting startup AI companies. I pains me to be too critical of my own country (the USA) but I think we are really making bad mistakes by: 1) not sufficiently supporting research at the government level. 2) turning our students into life-long debt slaves with student loans. 3) screwing up our long term economic and social health by, for example, not providing free meals to poor kids in schools (one of the very cost effective ways to get a more educated work force - kids who are hungry in school tend to not do well). 4) stop allowing Facebook/Google/etc. unfettered use of private data while at the same time not figuring out a way to get more training data to people doing basic reseaerch.

eastendguy 8y ago

...in what area is China actually leading? Catching up and leading require two very different skill sets.

thrwawayw434 8y ago
Do you follow ML ? A lot of big-impact papers in Computer vision has come directly from mainland China and Hong Kong. MSRA, CUHK, Sensetime, and Baidu have made quite a few advances in the field.DMLC a group of members composed mostly of Chinese students basically wrote things like MXNET and Xgboost. Granted most of these are collaborative ventures, but calling China 'catching up' at this stage is ignorant.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- m0zg 8y ago
  And yet nearly all SOTA research is done in the US. Eventually folks in China realize they could easily be making $500K+/yr at FANG and be financially independent in 10 years, so they leave for the much, much greener US pastures, and stay here.
  - withhighprod 8y ago
    Lol look how many went back after Trump
coldtea 8y ago
Here's an example, these are the golden standard. Which would be the US equivalent? https://www.dji.com/gr/products/drones https://www.dji.com/gr/products/drones Here's another -- better than Google by a wide margin: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290215/huawei-p30-pro-camera-night-low-light-mode-photos https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/1/18290215/huawei-p30-pro-ca...
- eastendguy 8y ago

zachguo 8y ago

The US has overwhelming technological advantages over China, breakthroughs in AI still largely come from the US. China has more data and state support though.