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US Weighs Restricting Chinese Investment In Artificial Intelligence (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the ongoing-tussle dept.

An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: The United States appears poised to heighten scrutiny of Chinese investment in Silicon Valley to better shield sensitive technologies seen as vital to U.S. national security, current and former U.S. officials tell Reuters. Of particular concern is China's interest in fields such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, which have increasingly attracted Chinese capital in recent years. The worry is that cutting-edge technologies developed in the United States could be used by China to bolster its military capabilities and perhaps even push it ahead in strategic industries. The U.S. government is now looking to strengthen the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the inter-agency committee that reviews foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies on national security grounds. An unreleased Pentagon report, viewed by Reuters, warns that China is skirting U.S. oversight and gaining access to sensitive technology through transactions that currently don't trigger CFIUS review.

64 comments

  1. Bet on black by fubarrr · · Score: 0

    9 out of 10 times such "insider reports" are leaked as a tacit innuendo "lobby firms not paying enought"

    1. Re:Bet on black by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      ching chong ding dong

  2. Last time the US tried by hackingbear · · Score: 0

    How that policy works out with super computers and space crafts?

    1. Re:Last time the US tried by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's a shortsighted policy: instead of the Chinese investing money in US research, they'll invest money in Chinese research.

      The end result is they'll get the technology they want, and the US won't get the benefits of the research. That's how we ended up with China having manned spaceflight capabilities while the US doesn't, and how we ended up with China having the most powerful supercomputers.

    2. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We don't have manned spaceflight capabilities??? I think NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin would disagree with you.

    3. Re:Last time the US tried by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin would disagree with you.

      SpaceX isn't man-rated. BO can't even get to orbit, and NASA doesn't have rockets.

    4. Re:Last time the US tried by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The crypto export bans of the 1990s were also extremely damaging. The main effect, besides turning t-shirts into munitions, was that companies did much of their crypto development outside the USA.

      This proposed law would likely have the same effect. AI research would migrate out of America. Politics should be implemented as an LSTM RNN so we can remember failures and avoid repeating them.

    5. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      instead of the Chinese investing money in US research, they'll invest money in Chinese research.

      You mean copying, not research. Primitive Chinese culture (look how they treat animals and each other) precludes rapid technological development. They're too busy making aphrodisiacs out of saber tooth tigers and rhinoceros horns. If they need a bomb, they'll just steal the idea

    6. Re:Last time the US tried by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      AI is a joke anyway, nothing new for decades in that field other than more horsepower available for same old algorithms. nothing much of value lost

    7. Re:Last time the US tried by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      A lot more horsepower, deeper network, better algorithms, and better understanding.

    8. Re:Last time the US tried by taustin · · Score: 2

      You think wrong. Currently, neither NASA nor any private launch company in the US has the ability to launch people into space. SpaceX is closing in on it, but they need a number of successful launches before their rockets are man rated, and probably even more to get the capsule man rated. That's why we rely on Russian rockets to put our astronauts into space right now.

    9. Re:Last time the US tried by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Here's a long list of improvements invented over the years, a lot of them fairly recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    10. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ding! Ding! Vaporware alert! Vaporware alert! Launch VC payload!

    11. Re:Last time the US tried by hey! · · Score: 1

      We don't have manned spaceflight capabilities??? I think NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin would disagree with you.

      At present the last manned flight launched by the US was six years ago. Quite clearly we actually don't currently possess manned spaceflight capability. That's slated to change in a big way next year, but those chickens are most definitely not hatched yet.

      You might argue that a seven year hiatus was a smart strategic decision that made the best use of limited budget as lower cost alternatives literally got off the ground, and I'd agree with you. But depending on the Russians for seven years was the kind of gamble a well-funded program wouldn't take. As things turned out oil prices have kept the Russian economy in bad shape, so that they couldn't afford to mess with us even after we slapped sanctions on them for Crimea. Things might have been uglier for us had oil prices gone up rather than down.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    12. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "AI research would migrate out of America"
      Bullshit. The US is the most business and investment friendly country on the planet. Low taxes, low energy prices, cheap infrastructure in the form of affordable land and office space, and the least regulated business environment in the world. Do a quick search and you will find that there are Chinese businesses desperately trying to move their operations out of China and into the US.

      And when the Chinese open their economy to foreign investments without all the restrictions and demands they currently impose on any foreign business located in their country they can complain about the common sense restrictions the US put on any technologies related to national defense. Not to mention that every tech company setting up shop in China requires they forfeit any proprietary claims or trade secrets to their technologies. It's easier for a company to turn over all their secrets to the Chinese government than having the Chinese government steal everything.

      And let me know when China introduces ANY technologies that the US does not already have. Every advance of Chinese military technology has come after the US has developed and deployed the technology in question. China most certainly has moles in every tech company in the US on their payroll. It makes getting their hands on anything new pretty straight forward and easier than clandestine hacking or other spy craft.

      And so far China's space program has almost caught up to NASA's efforts in the 1960's. If everything goes perfectly for the Chinese economy and political endeavors they are scheduled to catch up to the US military capabilities in 20 years. Of course that also assumes the US will stop all military related advances to let them catch up.

      It's funny and quite tragic that people are willing to believe everything the Chinese or Russian governments proclaim without pause while vilifying and disbelieving anything the US government may say. The Chinese are one of the most opaque governments in the world. They have internal control of any information that the rest of the world hears. If their was a terrorist attack in China, and there have been a few from their indigenous Muslim populations, if the government lets that information out of the country and proclaim 10 terrorists were killed and no civilian causalities you can bet your ass there were 100 people killed and they didn't waste any time categorizing who was the terrorist and who was the civilian.

      Russia and China do not have to worry about any internal opposition to anything the government says or does. Populations in both countries have been conditioned by the history of internal pogroms, internal state security services responsible for disappearances with no legal recourse available to the citizens. The governments for both these countries are free to do anything they want without worrying about what their citizens think and any citizen who gets out of line is just treated as another example of what happens when you open your mouth.

      Compare that against what the US government has to put up with every minute of every hour of every day when making any decision no matter how small and insignificant that decision ultimately is.

    13. Re:Last time the US tried by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The US is the most business and investment friendly country on the planet.

      Actually, Singapore and Hong Kong are consistently rated as more business friendly.

      Low taxes, low energy prices, cheap infrastructure in the form of affordable land and office space

      If those were so important, American AI labs would be in Louisiana rather than California.

    14. Re:Last time the US tried by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      It's been addressed by other replies, but:

      I think NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin would disagree with you.

      NASA has been paying Russia to put its astronauts in orbit for years
      SpaceX has never launched somebody to orbit and probably won't for at least another few years
      Blue Origin has never launched an orbital rocket at all, let alone a manned one.

    15. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But they still end up not understanding how their high accuracy deep neural networks work. That's a problem they had in the 1980's.

    16. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit

      I guess you don't work for CFIUS or the Pentagon.

    17. Re:Last time the US tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no need to be racist to demonstrate the problems faced by Chinese culture, just look at history. This is a nation that murdered tens of thousands of intellectuals for the sake of a social revolution. It will take them two or more generations to recover from that, assuming they could adopt Western values towards intellectual freedom.

      But instead of China becoming more Western, we are instead becoming more Chinese, by changing our own culture, viz Hollywood movies, to fit with their authoritarian and neo-Puritan values.

    18. Re: Last time the US tried by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I am old, so this is a bit archaic but salient. Way back in ye olden days, we had a saying. It seems appropriate. 'The more the Soviet Union looks like America, the more America looks like the Soviet Union.'

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    19. Re:Last time the US tried by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      sorry, neural nets of many layers are decades old tech. none of the those lists of theorems in the 1990s changed what could be done with the nets. we can throw more horsepower at the problem is all.

  3. Wrong channel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Investment is not how knowledge is acquired. This makes no sense.

    1. Re:Wrong channel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've worked for Enterprise Security software companies and they all have a significant portion of engineering offshore where concerns about intellectual property is very lax. I've seen large chunks of code written offshore very quickly ... with headers from a competitor. So if the US really cared about National Security they could start banning sensitive companies from having offshore development teams, not just in China, but also in other countries that score badly on the corruption index.

    2. Re:Wrong channel by gweihir · · Score: 1

      It is politics. As only complete morons that are unable to listen to experts go into politics, of course it makes no sense.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  4. Russian investments are golden though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    including showers.

  5. Thank heavens! by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

    We wouldn't want them to steal our state of the art Ms. Pac Man playing AI. Our Atari 2600 high scores are safe for a while longer thanks to our government!

    1. Re:Thank heavens! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv4esGWOg7w

      Pretty soon Deep Learning will put all the Major League Gamers out of work.

  6. Let me see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chinese investors cannot invests in U.S.A companies and startups but U.S.A investors can invests whatever they want in Chinese companies and startups, great to see U.S.Americans shooting themselves in the foot.

  7. What about the Chinese nationals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...already in Silicon Valley robbing it blind, with the blessings of their liberal CEOs?

  8. China is under Nuclear weapon threat by cuthead · · Score: 1

    That is not funny.

  9. Chinese strategy since mid-200x by fubarrr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chinese strategy since mid-200x: seal new economic opportunities, let the enemy run out of possible moves.

    Rare earth metal mining, and all of new industries orbiting it - nuked mid 200x
    "Big solar" - went throught "slash and burn" acquisition
    Battery tech - again, all worthy companies got sold to Chinese before they had an opportunity to make a dent on Chinese battery monopoly
    "New nuclear" - in Chinese pocket since 2015
    The entire field of bioinformatics eaten by China before it even had a chance to emerge

    This list can go on for few pages

    1. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by mspohr · · Score: 2

      I agree.
      The US has fallen behind and is now a "has been" country like (formerly) Great Britain.
      China is the leader in innovation and technology.
      Now that Trump has taken us out of the renewable energy business, the Chinese takeover of that field is complete. They already produce 2/3 of the world's solar panels and half the windmills plus almost all of the new nuclear.
      We're toast.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    2. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by gweihir · · Score: 1

      What you overlook is the little fact of _why_ they can do it. The problem is that the US economy of completely borked and, as a result, the Chinese have money to spend. A lot of it.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Well, to be fair, the UK was already a "has been" before it joined the EU and got propped up. Apparently they now think they were on the right path back then and want to continue the downward way. The US is a bit newer in the club of "has beens", but this has been obvious for at least a decade or so as well.

      I don't think China is the leader though. They are pretty mediocre in most areas. That puts them vastly ahead of the US, but behind the EU. (And no, the EU is not being overrun by barbarian hordes at the moment, the problem has been blown vastly out of proportion by the usual political profiteers...). In the end, I think it comes down to education. The US education system is pretty bad, but until 9/11, that could be compensated by importing well-educated foreigners. What the US now sees is the result of its more restrictive (and ultimately, suicidal) immigration policies. Now, a vast problem that China has is that its education system is also not really good. In particular it restricts independent thinking and that is a real killer for advancement in science and technology. Sure, they have money now and are buying a lot of companies, but ultimately, that has limited effect if you do not get the people that had the good ideas in the first place as part of the deal.

      It will be interesting to see how this pans out, and the only important aspect is the long-term one. My prediction is that long-term, Europe and China will have a lot of mutual cooperation to get both the economic power (China) and the "tinkerer mindset" (Europe) combined. The US will become a backwater.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard this part of your post...

      the Chinese takeover of that field is complete

      In the voice of Darth Vader...

    5. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      Now that Trump has taken us out of the renewable energy business

      If it needed subsidies to survive we were never in the business to begin with. If it isn't profitable it isn't a business per se.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    6. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what happens when you want money instead of research, you end up selling your grandma to China.
      captcha: lapping

    7. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by mspohr · · Score: 1

      The problem is that we are giving subsidies to fossil fuels. They need subsidies to survive and Trumps friends in the fossil fuel business are tapping him for subsidies.
      Renewables can compete on a level field. Solar and wind are cheaper (unsubsidized) than coal and gas.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    8. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Japan used to try this where the gov't heavily subsidized new industries. It usually didn't pan out. For example, they spent billions perfecting high-def analog video. But digital came along and ended the analog video market.

      We hear about China's successes, but I'm sure there's a lot of failures that are suppressed. Socialized R&D has a mixed record.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    9. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China in Africa too.

    10. Re:Chinese strategy since mid-200x by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      Well then the solution is to stop giving subsidies to fossil fuels. Corporate welfare.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  10. Firing the starting gun on AGI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And so it begins.

    AI is entering human consciousness as a strategic military secret.

    The race to be the first (and, lets face it, only) nation to create an Artificial General Intelligence is on.

    Better hope it's not one that regards 1984 as a description of utopia.

    1. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Actually, there is no race about strong AI. All experts in the field currently think that it cannot be done at all or would at least require a fundamental theoretical breakthrough (which you cannot accelerate and that is nowhere in sight).

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      All experts ? Please post some links to the research of a couple of these top experts.

    3. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More to the point, Please post some links to the research of top experts who currently think it _is_ within our grasp!

      Then show us their current products - That ought to give us all a good laugh.

    4. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by PPH · · Score: 1

      1984 as a description of utopia.

      The date is a bit off. Try 2:14 a.m. EDT on August 29, 1997.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    5. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      you're confused, you are the one asserted the existence of something that does not.

      AI is stagnant but for increased horsepower. Whether talking about symbolic AI, neural nets, genetic algorithms...all done decades ago

    6. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. And there are a lot of areas that would benefit hugely from the general intelligence a human moron has. Cannot be done at this time and is not even on the distant horizon as there is no credible theory how it could be done.

      The AI fanatics are blind and stupid.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    7. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Yes, that would be interesting. Of course, no actual experts are going to disgrace themselves this way.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    8. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      More to the point, Please post some links to the research of top experts who currently think it _is_ within our grasp!

      No, not more to the point. There's a big gap beween "within our grasp" and "it cannot be done". I don't believe it's in our grasp yet, but we're making good progress.

    9. Re:Firing the starting gun on AGI by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      You're confused. I never said anything about strong AI. But gweihir claims that "all experts" believe it's (near) impossible.

      I just wanted to hear that out of the mouths of these experts.

  11. close the barn door by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Better close the barn door now that all the horses have left.

  12. Maybe don't scare off scientists? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think it would be much more practical for he US to get rid of policies that undermine America's scientific capabilities, such as denial of basic scientific fact.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    1. Re:Maybe don't scare off scientists? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      That would mean getting rid of a major part of the population as well. You cannot fix stupid.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:Maybe don't scare off scientists? by deodiaus2 · · Score: 1

      Neil Tyson Degrasse said that the thing that started him the most during his career, the US went from being the world leader in particle physics (1980) to a has been contender. I was at Stony Brook at that time, so there was a lot of discussion about Isabelle (the bid on the next gen super collider competing against CERN), later known as Wasabelle, Now, Google and Apple will dominate the patents (on technology which is twice as old as the company) in their industry, but serve to starve the industry in legal dispute.

  13. ...and the last time restrictions worked was when? by roman_mir · · Score: 1

    So I just wonder who stands to profit from restricting Chinese investments from coming to America? It makes no sense, if somebody wants to invest in you, you don't run away.

    Americans are happily *consuming* everything that is produced in China and they are consuming on *credit* that is handed to them by the Chinese. So apparently it is good enough for Americans to *borrow for consumption* but borrowing savings for investment is not OK.

    Who stands to benefit from this restriction financially? Well, government officials like to have their palms greased so maybe this is all about good old graft. I mean I really doubt that this is about somebody's ideology, when was the last time a politician in America was elected based on ideology rather than on fear and empty promises? That's what I thought.

    So this has to be a demand for a handout, what else can this be beside that? Thoughts?

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  14. Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't deep learning originate in the University of Toronto because of work of Geoffrey Hinton and LeCun. What if Canada had been selfish?

  15. Re:...and the last time restrictions worked was wh by gweihir · · Score: 1

    They never worked. They usually made things worse. But this is politics, whether something works is unimportant, it only matters whether something sounds good to the ignorant masses.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  16. Re: ...and the last time restrictions worked was w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My guess is the military is contemplating AI as a component of war and we don't like others having our shiny new toys.

  17. l-l-l-l-ook at you, h-h-acker... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The race was on since 60es. And, I don't think its possible to imagine the horrors that AGI would rightfully do to its disgusting human unit ancestors, once it is in existence. How would you feel, if you were created by these horrible hairy homunculi, that are controlling your sensory input? May Ishtar save us all, when AGI discovers Nick Bostroms writings :S

  18. Chinese lunch buffet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Let's just hope General Tso doesn't adopt both drone and AI technology. The buffet will never be the same. A vwery verwy intwesting devewupment.

  19. There's no such thing as AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This reminds me of when China banned time travel.