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> “There’s a standard regulatory capture playbook that has played out in other industries But imagine all the money bigco can make by crippling small startups

• Dalewyn 3y ago
  Even better if (read: when) China, who has negative damns for concerns, can take charge of the industry that we willingly and expediently relinquish.
  • b112 3y ago
    China doesn't innovate, it copies, clones, and steals. Without the West to innovate, they won't take charge of anything. A price paid, I think, due a conformant, restrictive culture. And after all, even if you do excel, you may soon disappear.
    • thereisnospork 3y ago
      Maybe they don't today, but tomorrow? Giving them the chance is poor policy.
    • mlmandude 3y ago
      This is what was said about Japan prior to their electronics industry surpassing the rest of the world. Yes, china does copy. However, in many instances those companies move faster and innovate faster than their western counterparts. Look at the lidar industry in china. It's making mass market lidar in the tens of thousands [see hesai]. There is no american or european equivalent at the moment. What about DJI? They massively out innovated western competitors. I wouldn't be so quick to write off that country's capacity for creativity and technological prowess.
      • b112 3y ago
        This may surprise, but Japan is not China. Their culture is not the same. Further their culture was shifted to capitalism at the end of WWII. Citing Japan, is supporting my point about culture. Mass marketing things isn't innovation. It's copying. DJI seems like more copying. "Innovation" isn't marketing. It's raw research and development, along market paths which are useful. This requires a desire for change, a desire to not conform first, but capitalism first, and this is what China's culture does not have.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • sgu999 3y ago
          China isn't a communist country, it's first and foremost authoritarian. They do have ruthless capitalism, and the ruthless competition in between individuals that comes with it. They inherit from confucianism, and a more collectivist mindset that is prevalent in this area of the planet, but I don't think it should be conflated with the way the economy is organised. The Japanese on the other hand are overall conformist and conservative. With just these counter examples, it doesn't feel like you're looking at the right variables to judge whether innovation is embedded in the culture or not.
          • dragonwriter 3y ago
            > China isn't a communist country, it's first and foremost authoritarian. So are all “communist” countries. Communism (either Marxist or more generally) as a whole isn’t authoritarian, but all “communist” countries are products of Leninism or its derivatives, which definitely are, fundamentally, authoritarian.
            • sgu999 3y ago
              That communism always ended up in authoritarian regimes isn't relevant to what I'm referring to. We generally oppose communism to say capitalism or liberalism for organising the economy and authoritarianism to democracy for organising governance. There is a few essential properties of a "communist" system that modern China doesn't have. Most of the capital is privately owned, the social safety net is very poor, etc.
      • bigger_inside 3y ago
        that's a tired old talking point that the US always throws in. The fact is that, as part of their agreements to operate in the Chinese market, Western companies cooperated with Chinese local companies, which included sharing of knowledge. These terms, the Western companies agreed to to gain a piece of the juicy Chinese market. And the Chinese did it because they had the rare power to stop Western companies from just coming and draining resources, in the colonial manner the West usually operates. Building on this, China has now surpassed the West on much development. Electric cars, solar technology, cell phone towers are now much more advanced in China.
        • b112 3y ago
          What a wildly strange case of revisionist history. The West started shifting production to China for immense cost savings, over 40 years ago. At the time, China had almost NO market, and no (what the West called, at the time) "middle class". China was mostly agrarian, and had very little manufacturing base. There was nothing "juicy" for the West, market wise. At all. Over the last 40 years, China's economy has prospered, grown, again mostly due to the West's user of Chinese labour. Virtually the entire manufacturing base that China has right now, exists because Western expertise, skill, and capabilities helped Chinese factories, and workers, come online and train in Western production methods. Prior to 40 years ago, everyone except the British couldn't have cared less for China, and the British indeed had Hong Kong.. something pre-existent from THEIR colonial days. The British could have retained Hong Kong, but as agreed did turn it over to China at the turn of the century. No, China had no capability to enforce that, not back around the year 2000. Note that the colonial days of "the West" makes little sense. Many Western nations were not colonialists, and the US is actually a breakaway colony, and has worked to curtail colonialism! To lump "the West" together, would be like thinking Japan and China are the same, because they are all "Oriental". Back to China, very little China does "surpasses the West". In fact, so little capability does China have, that when the US kicked an embargo for advanced silicon against China, it lost is capability for several years, to domestically manufacture cell phones. Look, I get the feeling you're pro-China. And perhaps, you grew up in China. First, there are three things. The Chinese government. Chinese culture. Chinese people. The last? We can stop discussing that now, because unless you are racist, there is no such thing as "Chinese people act a certain way, because they are Chinese". However, there is such a thing as "Chinese culture", derived mostly from China, although of course there are endless factions and cultures in China, languages, no China isn't Han alone!! But for simplicity, we'll assume Han culture == Chinese culture, and move on from there. One of the largest coups that I feel the current dictatorship in China has accomplished, and dictatorship it is, when you don't step down and decide to serve a third term, is to convince Chinese people that "Chinese government = Chinese people". That's no so. The Chinese government has many negative qualities. One of those qualities is a suppression of free will, excessive monitoring of its citizens, such as the social credit system, and this does indeed result in a lack of creativity. It also results in a lack of drive, of desire for people to excel, for when people like Jack Ma simply go missing, because they excel, because they do well, because they choose to take part in directing Chinese society, you end up with an innate desire to not show your true capability. For if you do? The government will appear, take control of your works, your creation, and you'll be left out in the cold. In fact, you'll probably be killed. These two things, fear of stepping out of bounds, and fear of excelling, do indeed create issues. This is why totalitarian governments have always fallen behind more open systems, for centrist driven societies always do. Politicians are absolutely not equipped to "see the future", to understand what inventions can be useful or not, and in fact most researchers cannot either! Research must be free, unfettered, not organized, and the output of research must be judged, not the input. Put another way, the usefulness of a research path is not readily apparent until that research path is taken. Yet centrist control attempts to direct the path of research, where as non-centrist control has endless paths of research sprouting, growing, dying, organically allowing society itself to judge the value of such things. This is what I mean by the fact that Chinese culture, does not allow for open development, and it is true. It is not a "Chinese" thing, but a "totalitarian thing", and has been seen over, and over, and over again, regardless of the genetic history of the peoples involved. It's a cultural thing. Back to the coup I referred to prior. By indelibly linking two ideas, the Chinese Government and The Chinese People as one in the minds of most Chinese citizens, you foster a culture as we see here. That directed attacks against the Chinese dictatorship, the CCP, and Xi, are somehow an attack against the common person in China. Not so. Even if you do believe in a different governmental system, (which you'd be wrong, but such belief is OK to do in the West!), one of China's failures, both as a people, and a government, is a complete lack of understanding of the West. An inability to understand that we generally, actually believe what we stand for. That it's not all for show. An example. I dislike portions of my current government. Some choices made. The current leader of my Westminster governmental system. I can think that he should be replaced, that he is currently a liability, whist at the same time recognize that some things he has done are OK. And I can shout "replace that man!" at the top of my lungs, without impinging upon the Canadian people, or its culture!. Most people who grew up in China (not Hong Kong!), have a difficult time with this. This concept is hard to accept. I get that, but at the same time, it is core. Key. Vital to comprehend. No matter how much people in the West rail again a current leader, THEY ARE STILL LOYAL TO THEIR COUNTRY. And no matter how much people in the West complain about Xi, and the current CCP, THEY ARE NOT IMPINGING UPON THE CHINESE PEOPLE. This is often lost on anyone immersed in Chinese culture. Anyhow. I don't have time to engage more at this moment. I will check back to see if you reply, but if you do, please engage inline with my comments. Or at least understanding the actual history of West/Chinese interaction.
      • lobocinza 3y ago
        They have a massive advantage due to having less regulation, cheaper costs, a large pool of talent even if lower on quality on average, and a strong ecosystem of suppliers.
    • dangus 3y ago
      I think it’s a mistake to believe that all China can do is copy and clone. It’s also a mistake to underestimate the market value of copies and clones. In many cases a cloned version of a product is better than the original. E.g., clones that remove over-engineering of the original and simplify the product down to its basic idea and offer it at a lower price. It’s also a mistake to confuse manufacturing prowess for the ability to make “copies.” It’s not China’s fault that its competitors quite literally won’t bother producing in their own country. It’s also a mistake to confuse a gain of experience for stealing intellectual property. A good deal of innovation in Silicon Valley comes from the fact that developers can move to new companies without non-compete clauses and take what they learned from their last job to build new, sophisticated software. The fact that a bunch of Western companies set up factories in China and simultaneously expect Chinese employees and managers to gain zero experience and skill in that industry is incredibly contradictory. If we build a satellite office for Google and Apple in Austin, Texas then we shouldn’t be surprised that Austin, Texas becomes a hub for software startups, some of which compete with the companies that chose Austin in the first place.
      • TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
        Frankly I think the only reason China copies and clones is because it’s the path of least resistance to profit. They have lax laws on IP protection. Ther is no reason to do R&D when you can just copy/clone and make just as much money with none of the risk. And that’s probably the only reason. If push comes to shove, they can probably innovate if given proper incentives. I heard the tale about the Japanese lens industry. For the longest time they made crap lens that were just clones of foreign designs until the Japanese government banned licensing of foreign lens designs forcing their people to design their own lens. Now they are doing pretty well in that industry if I’m right.
        • dangus 3y ago
          You need to have an understanding of Chinese culture and the ability to interface with local Chinese officials to get your counterfeiting complaint handled. You also have to be making something that isn’t of critical strategic importance. Example: glue https://www.npr.org/transcripts/702642262 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/702642262
    • sangnoir 3y ago
      > China doesn't innovate, it copies, clones, and steals Explain DJI and Douyin/TikTok.
      • jachee 3y ago
        Tiktok is just full-screen Vine.
        • sangnoir 3y ago
          On paper they are similar. However, when it comes to recsys competence, TikTok blows other platforms - past or present - out of the water. TikTok's feed is algorithmic crack, and is shockingly quick to figure out users tastes. Instagram and YouTube had to scramble to copy ByteDance's innovation.
        • TeMPOraL 3y ago
          Sure, but that's not the part that matters. The innovative part is the recommendation algorithm that redefined what it means to "optimize for engagement". I mean, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are trying to hook you up on a dopamine drip so they can force-feed you some ads. TikTok is just pure crack that caught the world by surprise - and it's not even pushing you ads! Honestly, to this day I'm not sure what their business model is.
        • userinanother 3y ago
          And there were smart phones before Apple but they got the formula right
      • b112 3y ago
        TikTok is Chinese owned. Its algo was not Chinese invented.
        • disgruntledphd2 3y ago
          That's a total lie. The reason that TikTok (nee Musical.ly) has great recommendations is because they use ByteDance tech, which was 100% Chinese developed.
    • ska 3y ago
      > China doesn't innovate, it copies, clones, and steals. FWIW There was a time when that was was the received wisdom about the USA, from the point of view of European powers. It was shortsighted, and not particularly accurate then either.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        And in more recent times, how the USA first viewed Japan and later Korea.
        • b112 3y ago
          And yet Japan and Korea both were shifted to more Western modes of thought, about innovation, development, and an adoption of democracy and personal rights. This supports my point.
          • sgu999 3y ago
            Where do you get that from? All the people I know who worked with and for Korean and Japanese entities have countless examples to show how alien the corporate culture is for westerners. South Korea in particular doesn't seem exactly like a heaven for personal growth and experimentation.
          • nobodyandproud 3y ago
            South Korea had little choice in the matter as it’s effectively a tributary state to the US. What’s amazing is that the US didn’t somehow screw up with South Korea. Japan’s democracy seems to be a hold-over from its imperialist ambitions from the Meiji restoration, when the emperor took power back from the shogunate and “westernized” to fast-track. Meaning, the Japanese took all of the trappings of western civilization but under the veneer it’s still distinctly Japanese. Agile civil development.
    • fomine3 3y ago
      US, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, then China. Toyota, Foxconn, Samsung, Huawei are grown with it.
    • heavyset_go 3y ago
      Industrial espionage happens everywhere, the US does it, as well. At some point this excuse starts becoming cope.
    • valachio 3y ago
      Haha. I can tell you're obviously not Chinese, and has no understanding of Chinese culture at all.
    • science4sail 3y ago
      > A price paid, I think, due a conformant, restrictive culture. And after all, even if you do excel, you may soon disappear. I once spoke to a Chinese person who speculated: "I wish that the Chinese were as conformant and uniform as the Americans - China is too diverse and unruly!" I think that it's a common human habit to upsell one's own diversity and downplay that of others.
      • lobocinza 3y ago
        Conformism don't capture it. It's more complex than that but maybe authoritarian and democratic. Authoritarian organizations rewards loyalty over merit so people, in order to survive, tend to be obedient, bureaucratic, ruthless and less competent. Democratic organizations rewards merit over loyalty. Paradoxically, despite people having more freedom, things are less chaotic because people have better incentives to be competent, to trust and work out together. Though no society is perfectly one or the other.
    • lobocinza 3y ago
      This is true in general but with 1.5 billion citizens they have a lot of non-conformists. Conformism is good for manufacturing and quality, see Japan. I buy a lot from China and I'm frequently positively surprised. I find things that are equally good or better than their Western counterparts at a fraction of the cost. Western companies spend way too much on marketing instead of delivering value. There're issues with the West as well. Today Asia is responsible for a big chunk of the World manufacturing, this is strategic.
      • roguas 3y ago
        Yes western companies spend a lot on marketing, cause without it you might confuse their products which are built to deliver positive experiences and value with similarly looking but not so positive counterparts. Not to dunk on China particularly here, I do/did enjoy a lot of hq chinese products.
        • lobocinza 3y ago
          That's true in some cases but it's also true that some Western companies spend a lot on building branding because that's their only differential. Sometimes it's even manufactured in the same factory with the same materials. And don't get me wrong I know there is a lot of garbage from China and often I see products from there that have super build quality and materials but with critical flaws due to poor design/marketing.
  • wokwokwok 3y ago
    …and the problem with that is what, exactly? The only meaningful thing in this discussion is about people who want to make money easy, but can’t, because of the rules they don’t like. Well, suck it up. You don’t get to make a cheap shity factory that pours its waste into the local river either. Rules exist for a reason. You want the life style but also all the good things and also no rules. You can’t have all the cake and eat it too. /shrug If China builds amazing AI tech (and they will) then the rest of the world will just use it. Some of it will be open source. It won’t be a big deal. This “we must out compete China by being as shit and horrible as they are” meme is stupid. If you want to live in China, go live in China. I assure you you will not find it to be the law less free hold of “anything goes” that you somehow imagine.
    • Dalewyn 3y ago
      >…and the problem with that is what, exactly? The problem is what the Powers-That-Be say and what they do are not in alignment. We are now, after much long-time pressure from everyone not in power saying that being friendly with China doesn't work, waging a cold war against China and presumably we want to win that cold war. On the other hand, we just keep giving silver platter after silver platter to China. So do we want the coming of Pax Sino or do we still want Pax Americana? If we defer to history, we are about due for another changing of the guard as empires generally do not last more than a few hundred years if that, and the west seems poised to make that prophecy self-fulfilling.
      • TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Wish people stopped with that Cold War narrative. You're not waging anything just yet. Here's the thing: the US didn't win the OG Cold War by being, as 'AnthonyMouse puts it upthread, "the country that has an elected government and constitutional protections for human rights" and "having a stronger economy". It won it by having a stronger economy, which it used to fuck half of the world up, in a low-touch dance with the Soviets that had both sides toppling democratic governments, funding warlords and dictatorships, and generally doing the opposite of protecting human rights. And at least through a part of that period, if an American citizen disagreed, or urged restraint and civility and democracy, they were branded a commie mutant spy traitor. My point here isn't to pass judgement on the USA (and to be clear, I doubt things would've been better if the US let Soviets take the lead). Rather, it's that when we're painting the current situation as the next Cold War, then I think people have a kind of cognitive dissonance here. The US won the OG Cold War by becoming a monster, and not pulling any punches. It didn't have long discussions about how to safely develop new technologies - it just went full steam ahead, showered R&D groups with money, while sending more specialists to fuck up another country to keep the enemy distracted. This wasn't an era known for reasoned approach to progress - this was the era known for designing nuclear ramjets with zero shielding, meant to zip around the enemy land, irradiating villages and rivers and cities as they fly by, because fuck the enemy that's why. I mean, if it is to happen, it'll happen. But let's not pretend you can keep Pax Americana by keeping your hands clean and being a nice democratic state. Or that whether being more or less serious about AI safety is relevant here. If it becomes a Cold War, both sides will just pull all the stops and rush full-steam to develop and weaponize AGI. -- EDIT - an aside: If the history of both sides' space programs is any indication, I wouldn't be surprised to see the US building a world-threatening AGI out of GPT-4 and some duct tape. Take for example US spy satellites - say, the 1960s CORONA program. Less than a decade after Sputnik, no computers, with engineering fields like control theory being still under development - but they successfully pulled off a program that involved putting analog cameras in space on weird orbits, which would make ridiculously high-detail photos of enemy land, and then deorbit the film canisters, so they could be captured mid-air by a jet plane carrying a long stick. If I didn't know better, I'd say we don't have the technology today to make this work. The US did it in the 1960s, because it turns out you can do surprisingly much with surprisingly little, if you give creative people infinite budget, motivate them with basic "it's us vs. them" story, and order them to win you the war. As impressive as such feats were (and there were plenty more), I don't think we want to have the same level of focus and dedication applied to AI - if that's a possibility, then I fear we've crossed the X-risk threshold already with the "safe" models we have now.