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History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. In man

History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. In many senses there's hubris in the western* view of China accomplishments: most of what western companies have created has had significant contribution by Chinese scientists or manufacturing, without which those companies would have nothing. If you look at the names of AI researchers there's a strong pattern even if some are currently plying their trade in the west. --- * I hate the term "western" because some "westeners" use it to separated what they think are "civilized" from "uncivilized", hence for them LATAM is not "western" even though everything about LATAM countries is western.

achierius 1y ago
> most of what western companies have created has had significant contribution by Chinese scientists or manufacturing, without which those companies would have nothing. If you look at the names of AI researchers there's a strong pattern even if some are currently plying their trade in the west. While I don't disagree with your overall point, it's important to recognize that this is only a phenomenon of the last ~30 years, and to avoid falling into the trapn of Han racial chauvinism. E.g. there were ~no Chinese scientists in Germany in the 70s but they were heavily innovating nevertheless.
- dlisboa 1y ago
  Absolutely. China obviously has a longer history with innovation but they like to make it seem everything was invented by them at some point in the past. I'd say newer technology is where China has had a bigger impact. Consequently newer tech is precisely where global cooperation is most required so no country can really do it by themselves. We could even say no country, western or otherwise, has been doing it on their own for the past 500 years or so but alas...
  - tsunamifury 1y ago
    It’s more helpful to think of China as an accelerant rather than an innovator in this position.
notepad0x90 1y ago
western is a cultural term derived from a geographic one. The US is also not 'western' strictly geographically as it is not in western europe, neither is australia. But they both originated from Britain's empire and share in it's cultural ancestry. It means "western europe and it's cultural derivatives". Spain and Portugal's empire fell away long before britain and france's and they don't have similar geopolitical relations like NATO, so it's hard to consider their former colonies/upstarts part of the same sphere of cultural influence. China for sure will catch up, the question is what they will do with it. They're not ambitious like the US/West. The US wanted influence all over the world as an extension of the cold war and to keep economic interests safeguarded. But China just doesn't operate that way. They're more hands-off. They could be opening up alibaba cloud datacenters all over the US, offering it as an AWS/Azure alternative, funding tons of startups all over europe, the US,etc... to exert their influence, but they won't. They have a more long-term low-and-slow approach to global domination. The "100 year marathon" as they called it, which they'll win for sure. China's greatest weakness is not just their lack of ambition,but their command-economy. They're doing capitalism but with central control of the economy. It intertwines government policy with corporate policy, making it harder to do business overseas (like with bytedance/tiktok).
- tsunamifury 1y ago
  False. Westernism is broadly an extension of the academic notion of classicism, starting in Egypt and then Greece Rome and into Europe and the Americas.
  - notepad0x90 1y ago
    It's not an academic notion (at least not strictly), since virtually everyone uses it routinely.
    - tsunamifury 1y ago
      Oddly since I got many downvotes with this statement, it's clear the average hacker news reader knows very little about world history or common knowledge
zawaideh 1y ago
Re: Western. A similar thing plays out when the term "international community" is used in news. It refers to the US and its major allies which means US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand more or less.
- newyankee 1y ago
  Essentially countries that were developed prior to 1990 or so , although South Korea is a tricky case today going by this definition, as are Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore
- tsunamifury 1y ago
  Yes community refers to whose who participate in community. How is this hard to understand? Broadly speaking coast de ivory and the like is not a participant in the international community.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many many other countries that are very active members of the international community are not counted among members of THE "international community". Hell, much of Europe isn't either, including some of the former colonial empires, on some topics.
    - tsunamifury 1y ago
      China, Russia, India are certainly referred to when using this term. Iran and Saudi Arbia may or may not be. Usually not Pakistan, so I really dont know what in the hell you are saying.
- nicoburns 1y ago
  > A similar thing plays out when the term "international community" is used in news. It refers to the US and its major allies which means US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand more or less. Wait, really? I thought "international community" meant all countries.
deleted 1y ago
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onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
> History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. It's worked for a very long time for aircraft. China has been pushing to build its own aircraft for >23 years. It took 14 years for COMAC to get its first regional jet flying commercial flights on a Chinese airline, and 21 years to get a narrow-body plane flying a commercial flight on a Chinese airline. If for no technical reasons and purely political, COMAC may still be decades away from being able to fly to most of the world. Likewise, in ~5 years, China may be able to build Chips that are as good as Nvidia after Nvidia's 90% profit margin - i.e. they are 1/10th as good for the price - but since they can buy them for cost - they're they same price for performance and good enough. If for purely political reasons, China may never be able to export these chips to most of the world - which limits their scale - which makes it harder to make them cost effective compared to Western chips.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > China has been pushing to build its own aircraft for >23 years. It took 14 years for COMAC to get its first regional jet flying commercial flights on a Chinese airline, and 21 years to get a narrow-body plane flying a commercial flight on a Chinese airline And both those planes have a strong dependency on "western" components that won't be overcome before the 2030s, and even then, they're around a generation behind.
  - huntertwo 1y ago
    5 years behind becomes 3 years behind. China is expanding their manufacturing abilities faster than the US. Soon they will surpass the US. Look no further than their generic consumer electronics manufacturing.
    - sofixa 1y ago
      It's not 5 years behind, engine tech is more on a ~15 year cycle, or even more. CFM LEAP, latest short-to-medium-haul airliner engine from CFM (GE+Safran) is from 2013 (first run). Its predecessor, CFM56, is from 1974 (first run) and saw a few evolutions, including as late as 2009.
rayiner 1y ago
Nobody thinks the Japanese aren’t “civilized.” “Western” is just a euphemism for “rich and orderly.”
- bad_haircut72 1y ago
  Its more about democracy and adhering to the global (set up by America post WW2) system of laws and trade.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    I think most people considered Spain a "western" country even in 1970 when it was controlled by Franco.
- deleted 1y ago
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- switchbak 1y ago
  It is an odd category, and Japan is often considered to be "Western" - these days at least. That certainly wasn't the case even a few generations ago. I think it's ostensibly supposed to be more about shared cultural values, but even that is a pretty weak way to divide countries. Perhaps "an ally of the United States" is a little more accurate? Any societal dividing line like this is bound to hit on problems once subjected to the real world.
  - huntertwo 1y ago
    I think Japan likely shares more values culturally with China than USA outside of political systems. In any aspect outside of that Japan is not western.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      The leaders of Japan during the Meiji era (starting 1868) will be sad to learn that their attempt to thoroughly Westernize Japanese society failed even though it enabled Japan to dominate China (and most of the Western Pacific) for decades.
chuckadams 1y ago
I find "western" is often used to disparage "western thought", as in it can't grasp the deep wisdom of those mysterious orientals that transcends normal logic and reason. Declaring such a split is the underpinning of a whole lot of woo-woo beliefs.
- hbarka 1y ago
  Disparage or exalt? It can also be used in an objective sense without conjuring insult.
  - switchbak 1y ago
    It can be both. From different people, and it often is.
tsunamifury 1y ago
It’s helpful to think of westernism as a platonic ideal. Individually derived reason and virtue, superior to state and sometimes ‘gods’ as a tradition to drive up the total survivability, richness, and stability of the community. Concepts that enable the individual should empower a chosen configuration of society not the other way around. Contrast this with non westernism where either education of the individual is not valued or the state is the primary goal over the individual. I’ve worked with states governments and individuals around the world for 20 years and find this very useful definition. What’s confusing is the nations who have half adopted westernism but don’t fully due to either caste systems or government dominated thinking. It’s an arrow towards rationalism over tradition, individualism over collectivism, flatness over hierarchy, and future over past. But only the limit of the resources any given society has.
caycep 1y ago
this is true for anyone - create challenges, and you optimize efficiency elsewhere. Also, isn't this the usual path to better computer science? Reducing computation needs by making better/more efficient algorithms? The whole "trillions of dollars of brute force GPU strength" proposed by Altman, Nadella, Musk et al just seems to reinforce that these are business people at heart, not engineers/computer scientists...
nextworddev 1y ago
Name one thing China has invented first in LLMs that the “west” adopted as a standard
- nextworddev 1y ago
  Your silence is deafening, qwen bots
raincole 1y ago
> look at the names Why would I do that tho? If we look at the names of scientists/researchers/engineers/businessmen, the conclusion would be that the US has contributed nothing to the world. Europeans did all the hard work!
- thesmtsolver 1y ago
  Another equivalent way to look at that: Historically, top scientists/researchers/engineers/businessmen migrate from rest of the world to the US rather than to Europe or China. Imagine if Europe or China were a bit more open with immigration and equally attractive, we would see the same pattern there too.
lawlessone 1y ago
In a way withholding a tech becomes a signal saying "Hey this is important" so the result is China dedicates more resources to researching it lol.
hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
Ironically, the best way America could have prevented China’s rise in tech was by stapling green cards to diplomas of Chinese citizens who completed their higher education in the U.S. like the plan in the early 2010s.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
  Is that the best way? China's rise had already happened by the 2010s Preventing that could have been prevented in the 70s, 80s, 90s by stopping offshoring, blocking student visas, and prosecuting IP theft.
  - brookst 1y ago
    Those students would have just gone to other countries, written their PhD dissertations there, advanced another country’s tech sector, and the US would have found the pain of isolationism that much sooner. It is not possible to keep core IP secret. HN folks, of all people, should know this. Anything that thousands of people know is de facto public knowledge.
    - ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
      Keeping core IP secret is not the issue. The issue is allowing the Chinese to steal IP and then compete in our markets with that stolen IP. >students would have just gone to other countries, written their PhD dissertations there, advanced another country’s tech sector, which other countries specifically? No other country has a tech sector. It's the US hegemony or the China hegemony.
      - FpUser 1y ago
        >"...The issue is allowing the Chinese to steal IP..." I do not think they need permission. There is no force that could order country to recognize IP. Do you really expect all world forever pay rent to few giant corps?
        1y ago
hopelite 1y ago
I am not sure exactly to what degree, but "I hate the term 'western' because some 'weste[r]ners' use it to separated what they think are 'civilized' from 'uncivilized'" is definitely a bit of an antiquated perspective at this point; almost like a justification to hold on to other older perspectives about "racism". I have started resorting to using terms like European Cultural Block because of it in certain communities that understand contemporary topics and have an advanced understanding of the world. Your first statement is not likely unique to China though, even though they have demonstrated that in about the last 40 years, which I don't really think qualifies as "history". What it does demonstrate is that societies that have a certain kind of ethnic self-respect and can cast off the detrimental influences of foreign, hostile, and even enemy elements to pursue their own self-interest and survival will succeed, regardless of hurdles placed before them. It's really just a story of personal development and either escaping, evading, and avoiding detrimental, toxic people and their behaviors. All of humanity that all has to currently still share a single planet with ZERO save spots, would be better off if we all not just allowed each other to be ourselves in our won places without others subverting, subjugating, infiltrating, dominating, poisoning, or polluting any other people on the planet. Then everyone can decide if we want to be friends or not friends with each other, collaborate and be friendly or simply avoid each other. We do not have to like each other to get along if everyone agrees on a base understanding that no people can parasitize and abuse and manipulate any others.
huntertwo 1y ago
The whole “China copies everything” narrative is becoming less and less true. It’s funny - it’s at the point with Chinese manufacturing for niche electronic goods (e.g rooftop van air conditioner) where some Chinese brands are more trustworthy - more value for your money and sometimes even better overall quality. With American brands you gotta make sure you’re not overpaying for dated tech that is inefficient. Maybe the same will happen with LLMs.
- xbar 1y ago
  It is less exclusively true.
- ehnto 1y ago
  It's most notable to me in mid level manufacturing equipment. Once upon a time you would never touch a chinese made CNC, lathe, mill etc. Now they're totally fine, and offer significant value for your dollar. Sometimes outperforming other countries offerings while being cheaper to boot. Especially in new industries and processes, suggesting innovation is not the differentiator it used to be. Enterprises often prefer having US based support and so can prefer US or European machines that have that supply chain setup.
MSFT_Edging 1y ago
The whole "western" or "the west" always makes me laugh. Half the time it's a dog whistle for "white". Like many right-wing commentators love saying "Western Values" to avoid saying "white, Euro-centric, Christian values". Mexico is a modern country, an industrialized country, a country that is exactly as "western" as the US or Canada. They have the same religious beliefs, speak a dialect of a European language. They have European style cities, a long history of cultural contributions. Yet they're not white enough to be part of "The West". I think at this point we should be honest with ourselves in it's usage. 90% of the time it's a racist dog whistle.
- lazide 1y ago
  But why would anyone want to do that? You do realize that antagonizing people with nuclear weapons and the largest economies in the world rarely results in positive results, right?
  - hopelite 1y ago
    Arguably the sample size for that is 0 though; but even if we are generous, it’s only about 1 so far.
    - lazide 1y ago
      The number of nuclear armed countries with large economies that will get worked up if you call them racists for being ‘the west’ is waaaay larger than zero.
- skinnymuch 1y ago
  Mexico isn’t as “western” as the west. Mexico isn’t the first world. It’s not part of the exploiting Global North. The stuff you bring up ignore the power dynamics which are arguably the most important part.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  > Yet they're not white enough to be part of "The West". In many contexts, Mexico and other LatAm countries are included in the Western Civilization grouping. For instance: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/western-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/western-c... Earlier in your comment you say “half the time” while you end with “90% of the time” the phrase “western” is a racist expression, undermining your argument that is already flawed, emotional, and anti-constructive.
tw04 1y ago
> History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. Really? How long has China been attempting to build their own jet engines? How long have they been attempting to build competitive CPUs? History has shown withholding tech successfully keeps them at least a generation behind the west. In some fields like CPUs they “make up for it” by just building larger clusters, but ultimately history does not show what you’re claiming. The only thing it shows is that we need to be even more diligent in protecting IP because a large portion of their catching up is a direct result of stealing the tech they were cut off from.
- slaw 1y ago
  Jet engine since at least 2011. CPU since 2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Manufacturing_International_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Manufacturing_In...
  - tw04 1y ago
    >Jet engine since at least 2011 Huh? Did you read your own link? The jet engine that was shown at an aviation show as a non-functioning prototype in 2011, with hopes they'd have a functioning version by 2016, and in service by 2020 (it wasn't in service in 2020). Notice at the very top of your own article it says "still in development". >CPU since 2000 That isn't remotely competitive, and at least a full generation behind.
    - slaw 1y ago
      What 'since at least 2011' you don't understand?
      - tw04 1y ago
        What part of "a non-functioning prototype" don't you understand? Literally anyone can make a prototype jet engine. The metallurgy and process to make a functioning one is several orders of magnitude more difficult. Which is why... China still buys the vast, vast majority of their jet engines from Russia for military use. And their commercial passenger jets use engines from CFM.
corimaith 1y ago
>History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. I don't think you can really produce a definite counterfactual that they would or wouldn't have taken longer or shorter without it, but certainly they were pushing for self sufficiency long before technology restrictions. But we're not going to be handing our technologies to our competitors on a silver platter, and it's also best for businesses to start weaning themselves off the Chiinese market. Virtually every market reliant on them today is in big trouble. As for hubris, I think that's more a projection of your part if you want to start bringing up race cards with regards to contributions, that kind of argument would be applicable to everyone. And AI research is highly diverse and international, Chinese names don't dominate the list more than Turks, Greeks, Malaysians, etc.
heavyset_go 1y ago
It's just straight up low expectations and underestimation derived from racism in the assumption that Americans are smarter and more capable, and Chinese are only good for copying designs and making things we come up with. The idea that they can't do that like we can is pervasive.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  It’s absolutely fascinating and mystifying (and dismaying) to see educated and otherwise smart people in engineering in the US hold an opinion that two countries with over a billion people each can’t accomplish anything in engineering or science without “us”. Despite ample and repeated evidence that they can and, in China’s case, that they’re the best in the world in several areas of manufacturing.
JuniperMesos 1y ago
What term would you prefer? When you say "western view of China", do you mean to include or not include Latin American countries as part of the group of countries you claim has a hubristic view of China's accomplishments?

achierius 1y ago

> most of what western companies have created has had significant contribution by Chinese scientists or manufacturing, without which those companies would have nothing. If you look at the names of AI researchers there's a strong pattern even if some are currently plying their trade in the west. While I don't disagree with your overall point, it's important to recognize that this is only a phenomenon of the last ~30 years, and to avoid falling into the trapn of Han racial chauvinism. E.g. there were ~no Chinese scientists in Germany in the 70s but they were heavily innovating nevertheless.

dlisboa 1y ago
Absolutely. China obviously has a longer history with innovation but they like to make it seem everything was invented by them at some point in the past. I'd say newer technology is where China has had a bigger impact. Consequently newer tech is precisely where global cooperation is most required so no country can really do it by themselves. We could even say no country, western or otherwise, has been doing it on their own for the past 500 years or so but alas...
- tsunamifury 1y ago
  It’s more helpful to think of China as an accelerant rather than an innovator in this position.

notepad0x90 1y ago

western is a cultural term derived from a geographic one. The US is also not 'western' strictly geographically as it is not in western europe, neither is australia. But they both originated from Britain's empire and share in it's cultural ancestry. It means "western europe and it's cultural derivatives". Spain and Portugal's empire fell away long before britain and france's and they don't have similar geopolitical relations like NATO, so it's hard to consider their former colonies/upstarts part of the same sphere of cultural influence. China for sure will catch up, the question is what they will do with it. They're not ambitious like the US/West. The US wanted influence all over the world as an extension of the cold war and to keep economic interests safeguarded. But China just doesn't operate that way. They're more hands-off. They could be opening up alibaba cloud datacenters all over the US, offering it as an AWS/Azure alternative, funding tons of startups all over europe, the US,etc... to exert their influence, but they won't. They have a more long-term low-and-slow approach to global domination. The "100 year marathon" as they called it, which they'll win for sure. China's greatest weakness is not just their lack of ambition,but their command-economy. They're doing capitalism but with central control of the economy. It intertwines government policy with corporate policy, making it harder to do business overseas (like with bytedance/tiktok).

tsunamifury 1y ago
False. Westernism is broadly an extension of the academic notion of classicism, starting in Egypt and then Greece Rome and into Europe and the Americas.
- notepad0x90 1y ago
  It's not an academic notion (at least not strictly), since virtually everyone uses it routinely.
  - tsunamifury 1y ago
    Oddly since I got many downvotes with this statement, it's clear the average hacker news reader knows very little about world history or common knowledge

zawaideh 1y ago

Re: Western. A similar thing plays out when the term "international community" is used in news. It refers to the US and its major allies which means US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand more or less.

newyankee 1y ago
Essentially countries that were developed prior to 1990 or so , although South Korea is a tricky case today going by this definition, as are Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore
tsunamifury 1y ago
Yes community refers to whose who participate in community. How is this hard to understand? Broadly speaking coast de ivory and the like is not a participant in the international community.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many many other countries that are very active members of the international community are not counted among members of THE "international community". Hell, much of Europe isn't either, including some of the former colonial empires, on some topics.
  - tsunamifury 1y ago
    China, Russia, India are certainly referred to when using this term. Iran and Saudi Arbia may or may not be. Usually not Pakistan, so I really dont know what in the hell you are saying.
nicoburns 1y ago
> A similar thing plays out when the term "international community" is used in news. It refers to the US and its major allies which means US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand more or less. Wait, really? I thought "international community" meant all countries.

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onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago

> History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. It's worked for a very long time for aircraft. China has been pushing to build its own aircraft for >23 years. It took 14 years for COMAC to get its first regional jet flying commercial flights on a Chinese airline, and 21 years to get a narrow-body plane flying a commercial flight on a Chinese airline. If for no technical reasons and purely political, COMAC may still be decades away from being able to fly to most of the world. Likewise, in ~5 years, China may be able to build Chips that are as good as Nvidia after Nvidia's 90% profit margin - i.e. they are 1/10th as good for the price - but since they can buy them for cost - they're they same price for performance and good enough. If for purely political reasons, China may never be able to export these chips to most of the world - which limits their scale - which makes it harder to make them cost effective compared to Western chips.

sofixa 1y ago
> China has been pushing to build its own aircraft for >23 years. It took 14 years for COMAC to get its first regional jet flying commercial flights on a Chinese airline, and 21 years to get a narrow-body plane flying a commercial flight on a Chinese airline And both those planes have a strong dependency on "western" components that won't be overcome before the 2030s, and even then, they're around a generation behind.
- huntertwo 1y ago
  5 years behind becomes 3 years behind. China is expanding their manufacturing abilities faster than the US. Soon they will surpass the US. Look no further than their generic consumer electronics manufacturing.
  - sofixa 1y ago
    It's not 5 years behind, engine tech is more on a ~15 year cycle, or even more. CFM LEAP, latest short-to-medium-haul airliner engine from CFM (GE+Safran) is from 2013 (first run). Its predecessor, CFM56, is from 1974 (first run) and saw a few evolutions, including as late as 2009.

rayiner 1y ago

Nobody thinks the Japanese aren’t “civilized.” “Western” is just a euphemism for “rich and orderly.”

bad_haircut72 1y ago
Its more about democracy and adhering to the global (set up by America post WW2) system of laws and trade.
- rayiner 1y ago
  I think most people considered Spain a "western" country even in 1970 when it was controlled by Franco.
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switchbak 1y ago
It is an odd category, and Japan is often considered to be "Western" - these days at least. That certainly wasn't the case even a few generations ago. I think it's ostensibly supposed to be more about shared cultural values, but even that is a pretty weak way to divide countries. Perhaps "an ally of the United States" is a little more accurate? Any societal dividing line like this is bound to hit on problems once subjected to the real world.
- huntertwo 1y ago
  I think Japan likely shares more values culturally with China than USA outside of political systems. In any aspect outside of that Japan is not western.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    The leaders of Japan during the Meiji era (starting 1868) will be sad to learn that their attempt to thoroughly Westernize Japanese society failed even though it enabled Japan to dominate China (and most of the Western Pacific) for decades.

chuckadams 1y ago

I find "western" is often used to disparage "western thought", as in it can't grasp the deep wisdom of those mysterious orientals that transcends normal logic and reason. Declaring such a split is the underpinning of a whole lot of woo-woo beliefs.

hbarka 1y ago
Disparage or exalt? It can also be used in an objective sense without conjuring insult.
- switchbak 1y ago
  It can be both. From different people, and it often is.

tsunamifury 1y ago

It’s helpful to think of westernism as a platonic ideal. Individually derived reason and virtue, superior to state and sometimes ‘gods’ as a tradition to drive up the total survivability, richness, and stability of the community. Concepts that enable the individual should empower a chosen configuration of society not the other way around. Contrast this with non westernism where either education of the individual is not valued or the state is the primary goal over the individual. I’ve worked with states governments and individuals around the world for 20 years and find this very useful definition. What’s confusing is the nations who have half adopted westernism but don’t fully due to either caste systems or government dominated thinking. It’s an arrow towards rationalism over tradition, individualism over collectivism, flatness over hierarchy, and future over past. But only the limit of the resources any given society has.

caycep 1y ago

this is true for anyone - create challenges, and you optimize efficiency elsewhere. Also, isn't this the usual path to better computer science? Reducing computation needs by making better/more efficient algorithms? The whole "trillions of dollars of brute force GPU strength" proposed by Altman, Nadella, Musk et al just seems to reinforce that these are business people at heart, not engineers/computer scientists...

nextworddev 1y ago

Name one thing China has invented first in LLMs that the “west” adopted as a standard

nextworddev 1y ago
Your silence is deafening, qwen bots

raincole 1y ago

> look at the names Why would I do that tho? If we look at the names of scientists/researchers/engineers/businessmen, the conclusion would be that the US has contributed nothing to the world. Europeans did all the hard work!

thesmtsolver 1y ago
Another equivalent way to look at that: Historically, top scientists/researchers/engineers/businessmen migrate from rest of the world to the US rather than to Europe or China. Imagine if Europe or China were a bit more open with immigration and equally attractive, we would see the same pattern there too.

lawlessone 1y ago

In a way withholding a tech becomes a signal saying "Hey this is important" so the result is China dedicates more resources to researching it lol.

hshdhdhj4444 1y ago

Ironically, the best way America could have prevented China’s rise in tech was by stapling green cards to diplomas of Chinese citizens who completed their higher education in the U.S. like the plan in the early 2010s.

ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
Is that the best way? China's rise had already happened by the 2010s Preventing that could have been prevented in the 70s, 80s, 90s by stopping offshoring, blocking student visas, and prosecuting IP theft.
- brookst 1y ago
  Those students would have just gone to other countries, written their PhD dissertations there, advanced another country’s tech sector, and the US would have found the pain of isolationism that much sooner. It is not possible to keep core IP secret. HN folks, of all people, should know this. Anything that thousands of people know is de facto public knowledge.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
    Keeping core IP secret is not the issue. The issue is allowing the Chinese to steal IP and then compete in our markets with that stolen IP. >students would have just gone to other countries, written their PhD dissertations there, advanced another country’s tech sector, which other countries specifically? No other country has a tech sector. It's the US hegemony or the China hegemony.
    - FpUser 1y ago
      >"...The issue is allowing the Chinese to steal IP..." I do not think they need permission. There is no force that could order country to recognize IP. Do you really expect all world forever pay rent to few giant corps?
      - 1y ago

hopelite 1y ago

I am not sure exactly to what degree, but "I hate the term 'western' because some 'weste[r]ners' use it to separated what they think are 'civilized' from 'uncivilized'" is definitely a bit of an antiquated perspective at this point; almost like a justification to hold on to other older perspectives about "racism". I have started resorting to using terms like European Cultural Block because of it in certain communities that understand contemporary topics and have an advanced understanding of the world. Your first statement is not likely unique to China though, even though they have demonstrated that in about the last 40 years, which I don't really think qualifies as "history". What it does demonstrate is that societies that have a certain kind of ethnic self-respect and can cast off the detrimental influences of foreign, hostile, and even enemy elements to pursue their own self-interest and survival will succeed, regardless of hurdles placed before them. It's really just a story of personal development and either escaping, evading, and avoiding detrimental, toxic people and their behaviors. All of humanity that all has to currently still share a single planet with ZERO save spots, would be better off if we all not just allowed each other to be ourselves in our won places without others subverting, subjugating, infiltrating, dominating, poisoning, or polluting any other people on the planet. Then everyone can decide if we want to be friends or not friends with each other, collaborate and be friendly or simply avoid each other. We do not have to like each other to get along if everyone agrees on a base understanding that no people can parasitize and abuse and manipulate any others.

huntertwo 1y ago

The whole “China copies everything” narrative is becoming less and less true. It’s funny - it’s at the point with Chinese manufacturing for niche electronic goods (e.g rooftop van air conditioner) where some Chinese brands are more trustworthy - more value for your money and sometimes even better overall quality. With American brands you gotta make sure you’re not overpaying for dated tech that is inefficient. Maybe the same will happen with LLMs.

xbar 1y ago
It is less exclusively true.
ehnto 1y ago
It's most notable to me in mid level manufacturing equipment. Once upon a time you would never touch a chinese made CNC, lathe, mill etc. Now they're totally fine, and offer significant value for your dollar. Sometimes outperforming other countries offerings while being cheaper to boot. Especially in new industries and processes, suggesting innovation is not the differentiator it used to be. Enterprises often prefer having US based support and so can prefer US or European machines that have that supply chain setup.

MSFT_Edging 1y ago

The whole "western" or "the west" always makes me laugh. Half the time it's a dog whistle for "white". Like many right-wing commentators love saying "Western Values" to avoid saying "white, Euro-centric, Christian values". Mexico is a modern country, an industrialized country, a country that is exactly as "western" as the US or Canada. They have the same religious beliefs, speak a dialect of a European language. They have European style cities, a long history of cultural contributions. Yet they're not white enough to be part of "The West". I think at this point we should be honest with ourselves in it's usage. 90% of the time it's a racist dog whistle.

lazide 1y ago
But why would anyone want to do that? You do realize that antagonizing people with nuclear weapons and the largest economies in the world rarely results in positive results, right?
- hopelite 1y ago
  Arguably the sample size for that is 0 though; but even if we are generous, it’s only about 1 so far.
  - lazide 1y ago
    The number of nuclear armed countries with large economies that will get worked up if you call them racists for being ‘the west’ is waaaay larger than zero.
skinnymuch 1y ago
Mexico isn’t as “western” as the west. Mexico isn’t the first world. It’s not part of the exploiting Global North. The stuff you bring up ignore the power dynamics which are arguably the most important part.
andsoitis 1y ago
> Yet they're not white enough to be part of "The West". In many contexts, Mexico and other LatAm countries are included in the Western Civilization grouping. For instance: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/western-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/western-c... Earlier in your comment you say “half the time” while you end with “90% of the time” the phrase “western” is a racist expression, undermining your argument that is already flawed, emotional, and anti-constructive.

tw04 1y ago

> History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. Really? How long has China been attempting to build their own jet engines? How long have they been attempting to build competitive CPUs? History has shown withholding tech successfully keeps them at least a generation behind the west. In some fields like CPUs they “make up for it” by just building larger clusters, but ultimately history does not show what you’re claiming. The only thing it shows is that we need to be even more diligent in protecting IP because a large portion of their catching up is a direct result of stealing the tech they were cut off from.

slaw 1y ago
Jet engine since at least 2011. CPU since 2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAE_CJ-1000A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Manufacturing_International_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Manufacturing_In...
- tw04 1y ago
  >Jet engine since at least 2011 Huh? Did you read your own link? The jet engine that was shown at an aviation show as a non-functioning prototype in 2011, with hopes they'd have a functioning version by 2016, and in service by 2020 (it wasn't in service in 2020). Notice at the very top of your own article it says "still in development". >CPU since 2000 That isn't remotely competitive, and at least a full generation behind.
  - slaw 1y ago
    What 'since at least 2011' you don't understand?
    - tw04 1y ago
      What part of "a non-functioning prototype" don't you understand? Literally anyone can make a prototype jet engine. The metallurgy and process to make a functioning one is several orders of magnitude more difficult. Which is why... China still buys the vast, vast majority of their jet engines from Russia for military use. And their commercial passenger jets use engines from CFM.

corimaith 1y ago

>History has shown that withholding technology from China does not significantly stop them and they'll achieve it (or better) in a small number of years. I don't think you can really produce a definite counterfactual that they would or wouldn't have taken longer or shorter without it, but certainly they were pushing for self sufficiency long before technology restrictions. But we're not going to be handing our technologies to our competitors on a silver platter, and it's also best for businesses to start weaning themselves off the Chiinese market. Virtually every market reliant on them today is in big trouble. As for hubris, I think that's more a projection of your part if you want to start bringing up race cards with regards to contributions, that kind of argument would be applicable to everyone. And AI research is highly diverse and international, Chinese names don't dominate the list more than Turks, Greeks, Malaysians, etc.

heavyset_go 1y ago

It's just straight up low expectations and underestimation derived from racism in the assumption that Americans are smarter and more capable, and Chinese are only good for copying designs and making things we come up with. The idea that they can't do that like we can is pervasive.

sokoloff 1y ago
It’s absolutely fascinating and mystifying (and dismaying) to see educated and otherwise smart people in engineering in the US hold an opinion that two countries with over a billion people each can’t accomplish anything in engineering or science without “us”. Despite ample and repeated evidence that they can and, in China’s case, that they’re the best in the world in several areas of manufacturing.

JuniperMesos 1y ago

What term would you prefer? When you say "western view of China", do you mean to include or not include Latin American countries as part of the group of countries you claim has a hubristic view of China's accomplishments?