6 ms·

Why I feel that China will not slow down AI progress?

ShamelessC 3y ago
They won’t but mainland China hasn’t shown a very good track record of keeping up, much less inventing new methods that gain any sort of traction. They do seem to produce plenty of good researchers, who sometimes proceed to do good research with proper funding from western institutions. I would be more worried about Europe.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - fsociety 3y ago
    That seems like an overly broad and unfair generalization of Chinese.
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      Every generalization is "overly broad". That's why it's called a "generalization". As for whether the claim is fair or not, that's an opinion, but I disagree, obviously.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Um, are we just skipping past the whole colonialist era and straight into some sort of enlightened modern age? Even then, Russia's European too. China's had a rough and tumble history, to be sure, but they didn't try to take over the whole world. Just Tibet and Hong Kong so far, maybe Taiwan someday. I think their ambitions are different, and so are their ethical frameworks. The CCP isn't a governing body I admire, but their people and culture have a very long history of collectivism and Confucianism. The flip side of Han supremacy and cultural erasure is national unity and civil harmony, their version of manifest destiny I guess, with an emphasis on assimilation. I envision a Great Chinese AI to be in line with the firewall, ostensibly (and mostly) uses to promote harmony via strict control, rather than conquest. Maybe more Borg than Skynet?
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      > Um, are we just skipping past the whole colonialist era and straight into some sort of enlightened modern age? Even then, Russia's European too. yes because we are not in the colonialist era
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      It sounds like you agree with me aside from some vague historical wishy-washiness. Ironically, Russians don't really see themselves as "European".
      - solardev 3y ago
        I don't agree or disagree with you; it's too broad a generalization to be useful. Ethically, I'm worried about Chinese cultural genocide and stagnation, alongside European far-right nationalism and fascist resurgences. I don't think anybody has much of a claim to moral superiority here, much less supremacy. I'm not worried about AI developments from either. I think AI is the only chance this planet has at actual moral governance. I have more faith in these models than human government.
        boringuser2 3y ago
        The notion that the Chinese are the moral equivalent of the Europeans writ large beggars belief. It's just an absurd, intellectually offensive statement that I generally think you should feel bad about making. Note, I am neither Chinese nor European, an explicitly neutral observer.
        solardev 3y ago
        Well, I just don't think this provokes the moral outrage in me that it does in you. That's okay, we can have different beliefs. I'm not Chinese or European either, I just don't believe in some singularly great evil (or good, for that matter). Humans are complex, flawed creatures across the world...
      - FranzFerdiNaN 3y ago
  - mepiethree 3y ago
    > generally regarded Source? The current Chinese dictator does many unethical things, but ascribing the actions of a ruler to an entire race of people is fallacious. Akin to saying that Trump’s philandery applies to all Americans globally. As the other commenter said, China has a long history of studying ethics, morality, and philosophy. I’m not really a “PC” person but broadly saying that ”Europeans […] are more ethical than Chinese” is a white supremacist statement. I’m not saying you’re a white supremacist, but your comment is.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  > I would be more worried about Europe. Not really a concern. The AI phobia here in Europe is pretty bad, to the point where governments are shooting themselves in the foot by legislating progress on advancing tech out.
- chpatrick 3y ago
  I really don't think you're right there, many new models come from companies like Tencent and WeChat. Chinese investment in AI is increasing massively. A huge percentage of AI researchers are Chinese, if PRC can convince them to work there instead of the US they won't have any trouble.
- drannex 3y ago
  Not only are a rather decent number of AI developers and researchers who are Chinese, perhaps, and likely, some of the best in the world. but not only this but they are also the only manufacturing center for the GPU/CPUs needed to run the things. Tight collaboration between AI researchers and the manufactures of the hardware? No other country (absent their direct neighbors) have any chance at growing manufacturing facilities fast enough to catch up, especially with that combination.
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    > Not only are a rather decent number of AI developers and researchers who are Chinese, perhaps, and likely, some of the best in the world I didn't dispute that. In fact, I brought it up. > only manufacturing center for the GPU/CPUs needed to run the things they don't have the designs and sanctions by American companies are surprisingly already in place and historically effective. Finally, you are presupposing that "slowing down" in America means moving slower than China. Not only is that not necessarily the case, I don't think it's even really possible. This research can be done on readily available gaming GPU's if needed. Do you really think the US will intentionally cripple these markets in this fashion? More likely, companies will lobby for the opposite. Any slowing down done by the US will amount to virtue signaling.
0xDEF 3y ago
It is infuriating how the West keeps sabotaging itself. Both China and Yandex/Russia are moving ahead while the West is self-sabotaging with all the "responsible AI" bullshit.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  Does China have similar level, viable models?
  - FrozenTuna 3y ago
    Yes. Yi-34b is competitive with Llama2-70b which is often competitive with gpt 3.5. GPT-4 is on its own level atm but the point is that China has already created a good model that effectively beats Meta's current best.

They won’t but mainland China hasn’t shown a very good track record of keeping up, much less inventing new methods that gain any sort of traction. They do seem to produce plenty of good researchers, who sometimes proceed to do good research with proper funding from western institutions. I would be more worried about Europe.

boringuser2 3y ago
[flagged]
- fsociety 3y ago
  That seems like an overly broad and unfair generalization of Chinese.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    Every generalization is "overly broad". That's why it's called a "generalization". As for whether the claim is fair or not, that's an opinion, but I disagree, obviously.
- solardev 3y ago
  Um, are we just skipping past the whole colonialist era and straight into some sort of enlightened modern age? Even then, Russia's European too. China's had a rough and tumble history, to be sure, but they didn't try to take over the whole world. Just Tibet and Hong Kong so far, maybe Taiwan someday. I think their ambitions are different, and so are their ethical frameworks. The CCP isn't a governing body I admire, but their people and culture have a very long history of collectivism and Confucianism. The flip side of Han supremacy and cultural erasure is national unity and civil harmony, their version of manifest destiny I guess, with an emphasis on assimilation. I envision a Great Chinese AI to be in line with the firewall, ostensibly (and mostly) uses to promote harmony via strict control, rather than conquest. Maybe more Borg than Skynet?
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    > Um, are we just skipping past the whole colonialist era and straight into some sort of enlightened modern age? Even then, Russia's European too. yes because we are not in the colonialist era
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    It sounds like you agree with me aside from some vague historical wishy-washiness. Ironically, Russians don't really see themselves as "European".
    - solardev 3y ago
      I don't agree or disagree with you; it's too broad a generalization to be useful. Ethically, I'm worried about Chinese cultural genocide and stagnation, alongside European far-right nationalism and fascist resurgences. I don't think anybody has much of a claim to moral superiority here, much less supremacy. I'm not worried about AI developments from either. I think AI is the only chance this planet has at actual moral governance. I have more faith in these models than human government.
      - boringuser2 3y ago
        The notion that the Chinese are the moral equivalent of the Europeans writ large beggars belief. It's just an absurd, intellectually offensive statement that I generally think you should feel bad about making. Note, I am neither Chinese nor European, an explicitly neutral observer.
        solardev 3y ago
        Well, I just don't think this provokes the moral outrage in me that it does in you. That's okay, we can have different beliefs. I'm not Chinese or European either, I just don't believe in some singularly great evil (or good, for that matter). Humans are complex, flawed creatures across the world...
    - FranzFerdiNaN 3y ago
- mepiethree 3y ago
  > generally regarded Source? The current Chinese dictator does many unethical things, but ascribing the actions of a ruler to an entire race of people is fallacious. Akin to saying that Trump’s philandery applies to all Americans globally. As the other commenter said, China has a long history of studying ethics, morality, and philosophy. I’m not really a “PC” person but broadly saying that ”Europeans […] are more ethical than Chinese” is a white supremacist statement. I’m not saying you’re a white supremacist, but your comment is.
deafpolygon 3y ago
> I would be more worried about Europe. Not really a concern. The AI phobia here in Europe is pretty bad, to the point where governments are shooting themselves in the foot by legislating progress on advancing tech out.
chpatrick 3y ago
I really don't think you're right there, many new models come from companies like Tencent and WeChat. Chinese investment in AI is increasing massively. A huge percentage of AI researchers are Chinese, if PRC can convince them to work there instead of the US they won't have any trouble.
drannex 3y ago
Not only are a rather decent number of AI developers and researchers who are Chinese, perhaps, and likely, some of the best in the world. but not only this but they are also the only manufacturing center for the GPU/CPUs needed to run the things. Tight collaboration between AI researchers and the manufactures of the hardware? No other country (absent their direct neighbors) have any chance at growing manufacturing facilities fast enough to catch up, especially with that combination.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  > Not only are a rather decent number of AI developers and researchers who are Chinese, perhaps, and likely, some of the best in the world I didn't dispute that. In fact, I brought it up. > only manufacturing center for the GPU/CPUs needed to run the things they don't have the designs and sanctions by American companies are surprisingly already in place and historically effective. Finally, you are presupposing that "slowing down" in America means moving slower than China. Not only is that not necessarily the case, I don't think it's even really possible. This research can be done on readily available gaming GPU's if needed. Do you really think the US will intentionally cripple these markets in this fashion? More likely, companies will lobby for the opposite. Any slowing down done by the US will amount to virtue signaling.

0xDEF 3y ago

It is infuriating how the West keeps sabotaging itself. Both China and Yandex/Russia are moving ahead while the West is self-sabotaging with all the "responsible AI" bullshit.

wholinator2 3y ago
Does China have similar level, viable models?
- FrozenTuna 3y ago
  Yes. Yi-34b is competitive with Llama2-70b which is often competitive with gpt 3.5. GPT-4 is on its own level atm but the point is that China has already created a good model that effectively beats Meta's current best.