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Eric Schmidt and Bob Work: Our AI 'Sputnik Moment' Is Now (breakingdefense.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Breaking Defense: China's just announced an AI strategy designed to assure it will be dominant in the host of technologies by 2030. "If you believe this is important, as I believe, then we need to get our act together as a country," [Alphabet Exec Chairman Eric] Schmidt said this morning. In a Q and A session at the event organized by the Center for a New American Security, Schmidt said he thought the U.S. will maintain its lead over the People's Republic of China for the next five years, but he expects China to catch up about then and pass us "extremely quickly." How important does China think AI can be? Former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work told Breaking Defense the Chinese estimate they can boost economic growth with AI by 26 percent by 2030. "It's quite stunning," Work said. And, of course, the PRC's government has published a national strategy and released it to the world. What's the best response by the United States, I asked Work after Schmidt spoke. The federal government needs to answer this question at its highest levels, as happened after the Soviet Union stunned the world and launched the first satellite, Sputnik, Work said.
I was born 2 days after sputnik
and we got to the moon in '69
and haven't gone back there since '72
sometimes progress just stalls
Imagine if Sputnik never left the ground, and there was a huge campaign by businesses and media to convince everyone that Sputnik was flying around in orbit. That's AI.
That Eric Schmidt and people like him who promote AI are not disinterested parties? They all stand to make lots of money if they're right and if they're not there's little or no downside. We've seen this movie before: AI Winter. Now they're arguing for more public funding of AI research so that if and when it does bear fruit they can snatch up the results, patent them and then sell them back to us at an obscene profit. Socializing your costs and privatizing your profits, it's the American way. As for the Chinese, they'll throw vast sums of money behind whatever we Americans think is hot at the moment. The last Chinese invention that was actually original might have been paper or maybe gunpowder. In other words, what have they done for us lately besides steal our ideas and tech?
"The federal government needs to answer this question at its highest levels"
Schmidt is lobbying for free tax money. Their multi-billion advertising company apparently cannot pay the bill, so please, ordinary people, pay it for them, and then the profits will be theirs.
This should be great. Then China will have technology secrets worth stealing and hackers from elsewhere in the world can pirate them. Or other countries can require the Chinese to manufacture their AI products locally, in cooperation with local companies, who can rip off trade secrets. China will be pulling their weight in technological advancement and balancing up the flow of stolen trade secrets. Where's the problem?
I would like to see fewer announcements about AI based on other peoples' wild claims about AI's future, and more based on actual achievements. I know it can be difficult to quantify an "achievement" in this field, but, wow, the sheer volume of woo, fairy dust and unicorn farts we're getting is incredible . It's like taking the CGI in skin care advertisements seriously, and believing that we already have functioning nanotech.
There is no magic in "emergent behavior", and you do not "accidentally" get e.g. intelligent self-replicating robots by "stitching together" some 3D printers, motors and chips.
But there are a lot of very smart people working hard to move the ML and AI forward, and a lot of rich and influential people backing them, because the potential rewards are huge, and so is the risk of your competition arriving there first.
Also, there are many useful intermediate results, like self-driving cars, even if the general AI stays beyond our reach for another century.
As for the moral questions, they will be considered more seriously and solved quickly, once the general AI exists at least at the ape- or infant-level prototype, with a clear timeline for the next steps. Remember how people here said self-driving cars would never work even if technology existed, because we would never work out the laws? Turns out, as they gradually become a real thing, the laws catch up quickly, including the resolution of any moral issues, because the benefits are too huge to ignore. We will have some controversy, like with animal rights or equal opportunities today, but we will also have a working framework.
You have to plan ahead and hedge your bets, as a country as much as a corporation. And don't pretend there are no actual achievements, either.
We've been to the moon loads of times (including the USA), since 1972.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon
Progress is not having to send a man to do a robots job.
And soon we won't even need to communicate to tell the robot we send what to do. We'll *teach* its AI what to do and it will make the decisions as it goes and report back.
Welcome to progress. Progress by its nature isn't doing the same thing over and over again.
So the last world war will be Chinese AI God Emperor vs Russian AI Military Dictator vs USA AI IP Monopolist. European AI Bureaucrat will be still compiling the european law so will not participate
A Sputnik moment implies that the US is in some kind of race. In fact, they are not competing in a race. They are on the field and walking around the track, but they are not aware that there are other runners on the starting line preparing to begin sprinting.
I do not believe that the US is capable in this moment to have any sort of "moon shot" program in any area. Back in the 50's and 60's, most Americans trusted their government and they trusted American business to "do the right thing". Those days are over. These days a deep mistrust exists between the population and their governmental and corporate masters, and rightfully so.
My personal opinion, any perhaps you disagree, is that in the current climate, it is simply unthinkable to pour treasure into massive national "science" type programs.
American only has enough money to support the war machine... not to increase the knowledge base of the betterment of all.
Hell, there are loads of Americans who actively oppose the government spending any money on research or science in general. I suppose that is not a surprise given the rise of people in the US who do not "believe" in global warming and the damn scientists are just after those fat research grants.
How much money to those morons think the average scientist makes? Because...it is not a lot.
Does no one remember history?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer
Japanese claim they are taking over AI. US and EU panic and talk about DOOOOOM! Absolutely nothing happens.
And NOW the end game of all this AI hype is clear: grab some Federal Money. I knew after hearing all the recent "AI" hype there was money to made somewhere. There is no such thing as AI, but that doesn't stop people from grabbing taxpayers money.
A machine played "GO" and won!
It did more than winning. It took 40 days of self-learning, starting from zero, using just the rules of the game, to eclipse thousands of years of human study.
Computers are very good at that
No, before AlphaGo came along, they all sucked at it.
I have yet to meet any Americans who oppose spending money on science or research, ever.
I have met many that oppose spending money on political problems that people claim is "science" where the predetermined outcome is increasing their taxes greatly. When those people are questioned on those facts, terms like "denier" comes up and the discussion is shut down. When peer reviewed research is suggested, again the "denier" label comes out and it is prevented.
You are confusing political movements designed to oppress the middle class with "science". Its understandable because you probably agree with oppressing the middle class based on the fact that they don't vote the way you think they should and they need to be punished until they learn better. We have entered a climate where punishing people based on their political views is acceptable, and you don't want to fess up to it and shut down the discussion with terms like "denier" and "anti-science".
Like I said, I have not met a single American not wanting to see money going into ACTUAL scientific research. But you confuse political positions with predetermined outcomes with the term "science", and that is your problem.
For this goal, it is too late to start obscure government programs to support education. I mean that helps, but is not enough. By now, what would really help is a government-sponsored Manhattan project style lab with top scientists stolen from everywhere, with a virtually unlimited budget, and a firm goal to build the legendary self-improving thinking machine, while keeping it under control.
Schmidt probably hopes that such a project would be based on DeepMind, because they have some sort of a head start, and a great team. That may be the case, but if the government did it with full force, Alphabet would not keep control of the workgroup. At best, they might work out some deal for a share in the intellectual property.