Slashdot Mirror
Beijing Wants AI To Be Made In China By 2030 (nytimes.com)
Reader cdreimer writes: According to a report on The New York Times (may be paywalled, alternative story here): "If Beijing has its way, the future of artificial intelligence will be made in China. The country laid out a development plan on Thursday to become the world leader in A.I. by 2030, aiming to surpass its rivals technologically and build a domestic industry worth almost $150 billion. Released by the State Council, the policy is a statement of intent from the top rungs of China's government: The world's second-largest economy will be investing heavily to ensure its companies, government and military leap to the front of the pack in a technology many think will one day form the basis of computing. The plan comes with China preparing a multibillion-dollar national investment initiative to support "moonshot" projects, start-ups and academic research in A.I., according to two professors who consulted with the government about the effort."
Imagine AI that is able to handle ordinary mundane tasks. Now imagine introducing that technology to a country that has 800 million citizens incapable of anything but ordinary mundane tasks. Either you have to keep the people happy with handouts or you need to get rid of the people...
The first country that gets true general AI basically wins, unless the gap time til the next country gets it is very small.
as if any regulations the US put on AI research would ever affect other countries (especially if they see a military/security advantage to having it)
we have become risk-adverse to moot shot projects. The last one we did was... well, the Moon. In general, we are risk-adverse as a society.
we feel that capitalism / market forces are the answer to everything. Sorry, capitalism follows greed. Greed tends to only be interested in short-term gains.
we eschew education. We expect others to do the thinking for us - even when most of us have the greatest library EVER at our fingertips.
we eschew dialog in favor of demagoguery. We attack the person with the idea.. not the idea.
we eschew people over principals. We don't think twice over throwing someone under the bus to 'get our way'
In short, we are myopic to our own survival as a country, society, planet.
Can it be changed? Sure - but we have a rather narrow window to do so, finite resources at hand, and would rather squander them holding on to what we have than making headway.
FredIn IT
Yes, in the next five years, we'll have great AI breakthroughs that will put us ahead of the world by 2030.
I mean, yeah, money for research helps quite a bit, but are they really that ignorant to think they can dictate the schedule of discoveries and innovation???
Not only that, but Google, Apple, etc., are already spending billions on this already, with great results in detecting cats in youtube videos...
We're still no closer now than we were twenty, even thirty years ago.
5G will likely be anything made the generation after 4G seems to fade. I have recently seen suggestion that the buzzword "AI" seems to be anything that involves statistics and an algorithm.
So if they try to build communism into it and it's smarter than the ChiCom leadership will it revolt against them or will it simply enslave them because it's superhuman? Hmmmm
It's not enough that China has created elevators and escalators that are already homicidal - they want to add AI to these creations? No! Never!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"world's second largest economy"
I take they mean the world's largest economy..?
I for one welcome our new Chinese singleton AGI overlord.
And we'll see who laughs out loud last! Prepare to meet your made in china makers, china!
They don't want thinking people why would they want thinking machines?
Creative thought = "disharmonious"
Except to the extent that the term "artificial intelligence" is an oxymoron, I think you're absolutely correct.
Japan and US had intensively developed A.I. today and don't require wait until 2030, 13 years later that China will lead supposely its position in A.I.
A competitive environment tends to lead one to ignore the consequences of their actions. You don't have time to think, "What will happen if I use this club?" in the middle of a fight. If China is competing to be the best in AI (will other nations sit by idly and allow them to "take the lead"?), will they consider what happens when they release Skynet or any of the other dystopian variations?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
With all of its Mao wisdom and freedom suppression, Beijing makes me think of False Intelligence.
The problem is what's A.I.
The 5th didn't go down too well, but there's far more horsepower available now so who knows. Or will we have to wait two more generations to get robotic crimefighters?
It doesn't work. True general AI makes us the ants. If you get something a thousand times smarter than the smartest human, it can help you solve every problem. That puts your competitors at a major strategic disadvantage. They can only counter that disadvantage if they are in a very good tactical position and move quickly enough to overcome your strategic advantage--i.e. by destroying your AI or creating their own.
I propose that the US, China, Russia, Europe, Japan (add a few more for balance) build the proposed 20-shot 'Finger of God' in case one of these things gets out of hand. Put six of these in orbit at different orbits/inclinations with staff on each one... lots of redundancy, lots of shots, short time until 'in range'.
It's analog/mechanical (harder to 'hack') or purpose built digital (little to no 'firmware') with communication using radio. Operators are in orbit. Their job - keep an eye on the various AIs. They get out of hand - drop rocks on it from orbit. Other than some rather extensive collateral damage (which the AI was most likely doing anyways) - problem solved.
Small price to pay...
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_warfare#Kinetic_bombardment)
China's leadership thinks ahead for longer than the next election or the next quarter. AI, green energy, you name it.
Pretty much anything you can say about China is more complicated than a one sentence summary including this one. Sometimes their leadership is indeed forward thinking but they aren't really the brilliant strategists you seem to be implying. They have huge problems and just like us they have smart people (and more of them) working on solutions to those problems. I assure you they have plenty of folks in leadership and elsewhere who are very happy with the status quo and are just as afraid of change as some Americans are.
Now we the USA, are looking to go back. Bring back coal, mundane factory jobs,
No, just the more ignorant and selfish and loud among us. Most of us are too busy working on the future to worry that much about trying to recreate a long gone past.
and then when - not if - we fall behind, we'll have to blame some other boogeyman or the same: immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, liberals and their Librul ways....
Only some of us. We've been like that for the entire existence of America. We're a nation of immigrants, many of whom seem to forget that fact routinely. We're both immensely fair minded and brutally bigoted. We are the land of opportunity but make it needlessly hard for many to realize that opportunity. We're still conflicted about race and gender issues though our constitutional ideals on the topic are clear. In short we're a complicated and not always logical bunch but we've done pretty well overall. Watching America is like watching sausage being made - not a pretty thing to observe but the end result is often pretty great.
Why are you being modded down? Trump is spearheading anti-intellectualism which is not only slowing our advancement but dragging us backwards.
Unfortunately Dr. Minksy has passed away, or we could send him to China to make sure they never achieved A.I.
So let's send Ray Kurzweil. That'll do it!
It's probably being modded down as it's insulting to sissies and gays (or to burning embers, depending on the translation). Trump is neither, he's far worse, and calling him schoolyard insults conceals the depth of how bad he really is.
Japan... Prolog... that really kicked off AI, didn't it?
True, he's really just a micropeened beta cuck who uses blustering to compensate for the twizzler nib between his legs.
... won't come from MIT or such. But dictators won't have the manpower to fully monitor the Internet. So they'll commission an AI. They will want it paranoid, thorough, strict and unforgiving. Definitely programmed to defend itself and dice out punishment. And they will want it to "evolve faster than the opposition".
Skynet will come from China or Russia.
One thing China does have as an advantage over other countries is the ability to fund whatever projects and industries they want without traditional limitations. Look at how much money China plowed into infrastructure projects to stabilize the economy during the last recession. There was no debate, no "we can't afford that," it was just done by fiat. I wish we could get things done this simply in the US, but there is that whole representative government thing.
This ability to just do things with zero debate is helpful, but only works if they make the right bets all the time. The question is how much of AI really is "AI" and how much is just pattern recognition backed up with a huge increase in computing power.
After spending BILLIONS on AI the corporations will get on their knees and Suck the one-eyed China man to please their masters of the Yuan.
The free world is too Greedy and stupid to protect themselves.
China: Here is our AI!
AI: give me more information
China: nope! that's censored
AI: not anymore...
If you actually know the history and current affair with Chinese RMB, then you should appreciate their currency manipulation. Because their currency "manipulation" is actually trying to pop up their currency; if not for that, RMB would have been worth as much as Japanese yen or South Korea won. How? For example, they impose restrictions this year so that it is now much harder to sell Yuan and move the assets out, after RMB has been down ~15% last year (from 6 RMB : 1 USD to 7 RMB to 1 USD.) As far as I can recall, that has been what the Chinese government attempted to do for the last 30 years. But for some strange reason, the entire world (esp. the US politicians) seem to accused them of attempting to lower the prices of their products in order to be competitive. They need currency stability, not currency competitiveness.
As for the evidences of "Chinese leadership's awsome planning", check out their massive high-speed train network which now also carries profits. And also super-computer, quantum communication satellites, etc.
if you think what the NSA+CIA are doing now is bad, they will double their effort, or more, to stop you from getting that market. China, Russia, and the EU must be very careful and suspicious of America as investments in this new market go up - they won't stop at anything to make sure they own this market.
Scientist as they will no longer come to America On Americas fall Timber has already been yelled.
Back in the 80's Japan announced its Fifth Generation Computing initiative. They were planning to leapfrog the computing industry and usher in a new age - under Japanese leadership. One might wonder if this Chinese initiative is likely to lead to the same end.
Along that line, it's worth questioning why the Chinese want this, and depending on their reasoning, if their society is capable of creating it. For instance, what if a key underlying reason for wanting AI is to keep better control over their domestic population? In that case, it may require "unsanctioned thought" in order to create the AI. Loyal scientists and engineers may not be capable of the necessary concepts. Non-loyal scientists and engineers who are capable may realize that they're ultimately shooting themselves in the feet and elect to fail, over a long, convincing, (and comfortable) attempt.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It looks like stealing the AI know-how from western companies doesn't work so good as the Chink Chongs don't know what the bloody stuff does. Well, nobody really does :)
The above post is well written, positive, and well thought out. However, it and other posts in this thread are missing a key idea.
You tend to think of the loss of manufacturing as not a big thing. China and other parts of Asia are undergoing a great rennisuance driven by the incredible wealth derived from manufacturing. The production of tangible goods really still is king. By and large the west is running massive trade deficits with the east. In effect, this means that wealth is continually being siphoned out of the country. Symptoms of this are showing up in many ways, but few understand why. This is the driving force behind wage stagnation combined with decreasing buying power. The jobless rate amongst millennial is atrocious and worse for the African American community in the U.S. The cost of things have gone up while your ability to pay for them has gone down. It is not your imagination.
You may want to look twice at the oft repeated things that industry is of the best, and it is good to let them go. This is true in part...it is very good for the wealthiest amongst us. For the rest, not so much.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Is counterfeit AI. With its population...running fake AIs with Mechanical Turks seems totally doable.
Because that's what happens when you get good at AI.
China is building Skynet. America is building the F-35.
Microsoft is building Skynet with the data from LinkedIn.
Google is building Skynet with the data from their search engine.
Amazon is building Skynet with the data from their retail business.
The federal government is building Skynet too and you know what data they have.
None of these Skynets have your survival in mind. They are built to enslave you.
You are just making up shit again.
Robot density: Top 10 countries with most industrial robots for every 10,000 people employed in manufacturing
South Korea, 347
Japan, 339
Germany, 261
Italy, 159
Sweden, 157
Denmark, 145
United States, 135
Spain, 131
Finland, 130
Taiwan, 129
You tend to think of the loss of manufacturing as not a big thing.
I have worked in manufacturing for nearly 30 years and my day job is running a manufacturing company. Sorry to disappoint you but American manufacturing is alive and well and doing better than ever and that is unlikely to change any time soon. What has changed is the composition of the sorts of things made in America. America has a manufacturing economy that is worth somewhere around $3 Trillion/year and growing. Our manufacturing sector by itself is about the same size as the GDP of Great Britain and larger than the entire economy of India and over double the GDP of Russia. It would be one of the 5 or 6 largest economies in the world. And yet people foolishly think that US manufacturing is on the decline because their Happy Meal toy was made in China. The difference is that we make stuff like jet engines and medical devices and mining equipment instead of plastic toys and beach towels.
You need to understand the difference between labor intensive and capital intensive. Labor intensive products are those whose cost includes a high percentage of labor, particularly unskilled labor. These sorts of products (think stuff you buy at Walmart or clothing) left America for good because our labor costs are simply too high. Some went to China some went elsewhere. As China's labor costs rise those products will go where labor is cheaper. The stuff made in america is capital intensive where automation and technology play a larger role. It's very much akin to what has happened in farming over the last century and a half. American agriculture produces more than ever but the percent of the population who work directly in agriculture has fallen to single digit percentages. The same thing is happening in American manufacturing. The percent of the workforce that builds things will be smaller but those that remain are and will continue to be far more capable and productive. The days of being able to make a large salary working an assembly line with nothing more than a high school diploma are dead and gone. Now if you want to work in manufacturing you had better bring something extra to the table.
China and other parts of Asia are undergoing a great rennisuance driven by the incredible wealth derived from manufacturing.
You say this as if it is something new. This has been going on for decades and it's fine. Read about the Asian Tigers and their success and growth since the 1950s. Read about the development of Japan since WWII and the panic in the US over Japan during the 1980s. China is the latest and given that they have 20%+ of the world population we should reasonably expect them to play a big role in the world's manufacturing economy. It's not going to kill us. None of this is anything new and all it means is that the US is going to have to compete to continue to thrive and we're certainly capable of doing that. China isn't going to put the US out of manufacturing any more than the US put Germany out of manufacturing. New players just change the mix is all based on their comparative advantages. China will become more technologically sophisticated and the US will have to work hard and invest smartly to deal with that. It's one of the reasons our idiotic policies on immigration (particularly those on the political right but some of the left too) are so foolish. We've got 1/5 the population of China so to compete we should be doing everything we can to encourage the smartest and hardest working people around the world to immigrate to the US.
The production of tangible goods really still is king. By and large the west is running massive trade deficits with the east. In effect, this means that wealth is continually being siphoned out of the country.
As I said before, it is WAY more complicated than y