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I think there's actually a good point here. There does seem to be this scare mongering that China is going to become some sort of ultra efficient techno-totalit

I think there's actually a good point here. There does seem to be this scare mongering that China is going to become some sort of ultra efficient techno-totalitarian regime where their oppression is guided perfectly by technology. However, It's very difficult to get useful work done with machine learning. It's very easy to get absolutely rubbish results. The reason there's a massive arms race amongst the top tech companies for talent is because you need really smart people to actually apply machine learning well. So the likelihood is that a state like China is going to primarily to be getting rubbish results. The data they feed into their systems is going to be patchy, biased, often doctored. So when it starts locking people up and sending them to re-education camps they're not actually removing the disruptive forces in their society, they're just reproducing the great purges from Russia. Picking people more or less at random and attacking vast swathes of the population. And whilst they fail to solve their social problems they'll start creating economic problems as they start destroying their own workforce. At which point they either have to abandon these techniques entirely (unlikely) or just go more and more to the extreme, which is what we've seen time after time for states that engage in these behaviours.

quickthrower2 7y ago
China has a lot of smart people and a lot of money. I think they could do a pretty good job at applying machine learning.
- uoaei 7y ago
  Yeah, over a billion people, all loyal to the cause. Machine learning is sloppy and imperfect now but if anyone is going to get out ahead of the pack first, it would seem to be China. Especially since they are not held to the same accountability as other nations due to the West's relatively weak influence, and they are more comfortable with locking up the wrong person just to make sure they catch the right one too.
arethuza 7y ago
Is there any reason why machine learning techniques can't be used to control the application of machine learning techniques?
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  It's similar to "is there any reason why a computer can't program a computer?" Yes, you can do that, and you could even sort of say that a compiler is doing that. But if you think it keeps you from needing to have a person program the computer, you're expecting too much out of it.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Automated Machine Learning does seem a thing though? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_machine_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_machine_learning Edit: I was just curious, given the claimed widespread applicability of current ML techniques and the apparent demand for human intervention in the process, to what extent there had been any progress on automating the use of ML itself.
Jeff_Brown 7y ago
There's a tradeoff between type I and type II errors. As long as China's leaders are willing to err on the side of their own safety, and as long as they don't mind locking up way more people than necessary -- which conditions both seem to hold -- I see little hope for the hypothetical destabilizing effects of lousy AI. After all, dictators throughout history have made their countries horrible with no AI at all.

quickthrower2 7y ago

China has a lot of smart people and a lot of money. I think they could do a pretty good job at applying machine learning.

uoaei 7y ago
Yeah, over a billion people, all loyal to the cause. Machine learning is sloppy and imperfect now but if anyone is going to get out ahead of the pack first, it would seem to be China. Especially since they are not held to the same accountability as other nations due to the West's relatively weak influence, and they are more comfortable with locking up the wrong person just to make sure they catch the right one too.

arethuza 7y ago

Is there any reason why machine learning techniques can't be used to control the application of machine learning techniques?

rossdavidh 7y ago
It's similar to "is there any reason why a computer can't program a computer?" Yes, you can do that, and you could even sort of say that a compiler is doing that. But if you think it keeps you from needing to have a person program the computer, you're expecting too much out of it.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Automated Machine Learning does seem a thing though? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_machine_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_machine_learning Edit: I was just curious, given the claimed widespread applicability of current ML techniques and the apparent demand for human intervention in the process, to what extent there had been any progress on automating the use of ML itself.

Jeff_Brown 7y ago

There's a tradeoff between type I and type II errors. As long as China's leaders are willing to err on the side of their own safety, and as long as they don't mind locking up way more people than necessary -- which conditions both seem to hold -- I see little hope for the hypothetical destabilizing effects of lousy AI. After all, dictators throughout history have made their countries horrible with no AI at all.