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Chinese Companies Hunt for AI Talent at American Conference (nikkei.com)

Chinese internet players have flocked to a research conference on artificial intelligence here, fighting to attract students from their home country who received a top-notch education in the U.S. From a report: Chinese is the language of choice among 34 company and group booths occupying prime real estate near the entrance to the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference, opened Friday. Native speakers represent companies including virtual mall operator Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, which runs the communication platform WeChat. They woo students, mainly of Chinese origin, with descriptions of comfortable jobs or invite them to attend parties. The intense competition reflects the great strides China has made in the field. This year, the AAAI received research submissions in record numbers -- at least 3,800. Entries from China increased 57% on the year to a level roughly even with those from the U.S. Moreover, Chinese researchers were involved with about 60% of the research posters on display -- a privilege given to selected papers. The research poster exhibition was sponsored by Chinese internet company Baidu.

73 comments

  1. Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They only beat the Americans with research papers because they had AI write them all. The submission process is only there to train the AI deep learning algorithm.

  2. Watch your wallets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These people pick you clean and make you thank them for it.

  3. Yeah by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    You giving me a high level party membership? No. THEN FUCK OFF.

    1. Re:Yeah by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Play your cards right, you might actually get it. Quite a few engineers and scientists in Chinese politics. As opposed to us in the west: we get politicians who can talk, talk, talk all day, speak with authority, answer any question or glibly evade it, exude confidence and leadership... but with anything of substance ever leaving their mouths or even their brains. SLight off tpoic: that's what I liked about the press conference that Elon Musk gave. The guy is not a great public speaker and was frequently a bit flustered and lost for words... which, given the kind of people who don't possess those "deficiencies", speaks well of him.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Play your cards right, you might actually get it. Quite a few engineers and scientists in Chinese politics. As opposed to us in the west: we get politicians who can talk, talk, talk all day, speak with authority, answer any question or glibly evade it, exude confidence and leadership... but with anything of substance ever leaving their mouths or even their brains. SLight off tpoic: that's what I liked about the press conference that Elon Musk gave. The guy is not a great public speaker and was frequently a bit flustered and lost for words... which, given the kind of people who don't possess those "deficiencies", speaks well of him.

      Jesus you are delusional. China is a dictatorship.

    3. Re:Yeah by DaMattster · · Score: 1

      Jesus you are delusional. China is a dictatorship.

      Actually, you're wrong. China is a Communist oligarchy.

    4. Re:Yeah by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      That's because in the US, who's in government is largely inconsequential. Our society is dominated by private decisionmaking rather than public policy. So long as the windbags do anything egregious or intrusive or otherwise offensive, they will get reelected. Whether it's democrats or republicans in office in DC or the state capitol doesn't really affect where you can live, what jobs you can work, or whether the supermarket is stocked with food.

    5. Re:Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, YOU are wrong, it's a dictatorship masquerading as an oligarchy and in reality has zero to do with classical Communism as historically defined. They did keep the name though.

    6. Re:Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Play your cards right, you might actually get it. Quite a few engineers and scientists in Chinese politics. As opposed to us in the west: we get politicians who can talk, talk, talk all day, speak with authority, answer any question or glibly evade it, exude confidence and leadership... but with anything of substance ever leaving their mouths or even their brains. SLight off tpoic: that's what I liked about the press conference that Elon Musk gave. The guy is not a great public speaker and was frequently a bit flustered and lost for words... which, given the kind of people who don't possess those "deficiencies", speaks well of him.

      At least when Obama was president, we didn't have complete idiots in position of power. We had a nuclear physicist as Secretary of Energy. Now we have Rick Perry, who barely achieved a bachelors in animal sciences. And not to mention the oligarchy we've become by having Scott Pruit and other oil lobbyists, anti science lobbyists in charge

    7. Re: Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America is a capitalist regime that turns its people into retards and slaves by denying basic human rights, healthcare, and education.

    8. Re: Yeah by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

      And yet, the discussion is China. Oh, donuts may be mostly round, and Elon Musk may have launched a car into space: these are true, but have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
      You sound like my cousin. He could make a discussion on the merits of sous vide cooking somehow a diatribe against the US.

  4. massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These people pick you clean and make you thank them for it.

    Says a resident of the country that has repeatedly fucked over every other country on the planet

    Can you name a conflict on this planet where the USA does not have a hand?

    1. Re:massive cluelessness by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Ukraine, Syria (start to about 2015-6), the India/Pakistan wars over Kashmir, whatever the hell is going in CAR right now, Uganda civil war in the 90s, in fact just about all the wars that aren't Iraq or Afghanistan we've got nothing to do with. Try harder.

    2. Re:massive cluelessness by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

      You really live up to your username.

      --
      sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
    3. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "US will provide anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, State Dept. official says"

      https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/22/politics/us-ukraine-anti-tank-weapons-russia/index.html

      "Indian officials cautiously optimistic that there is now greater willingness in Washington to follow through on their threat to cut assistance to Pakistan"

      https://thewire.in/211076/us-ambassador-discusses-pakistan-aid-cut-india/

      "Central African Republic militia leaders hit with U.S. sanctions"

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-centralafrica-usa-sanctions/central-african-republic-militia-leaders-hit-with-u-s-sanctions-idUSKBN17E2FS

      you REALLY are fucking clueless, aren't you?

    4. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lick my nutsack!

    5. Re:massive cluelessness by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      So arms sales a few years in and arms embargoes to combatants are having our fingers in the war? OK. Sure. Hell, I bet there's an Intel or AMD chip somewhere in the North Korean satellite launch control room. That's tantamount to building their missiles for them with our own hands! Ditto for the Iranian nuclear program.

    6. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, I bet there's an Intel or AMD chip somewhere in the North Korean satellite launch control room.

      Apparently your education must have sucked because you don't know the meaning of the word "bet", you are "betting" nothing.

    7. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet there's an Intel or AMD chip somewhere in the North Korean satellite launch control room. .

      If your aim is to enumerate conflicts that we are not ijnvolved in, you're doing a really shitty job.

    8. Re:massive cluelessness by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      How much does this kind of trolling pay? I bet it doesn't pay that much, otherwise it would be of higher quality. It might even include some copy-paste talking points instead of silly word games.

    9. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much does this kind of trolling pay? I bet it doesn't pay that much, otherwise it would be of higher quality. It might even include some copy-paste talking points instead of silly word games.

      watching you make an idiot of yourself is payment enough, normally people pay money to see a freak show

      How's that list of conflicts coming along? Have you found any conflict anywhere on this planet where the USA is not participating in?

    10. Re: massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a bunch of lies you piece of n1gger shit. All those wars you've mentioned were masterminded by Obama/Pentagon/CIA.
      Die n1gger.

    11. Re:massive cluelessness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really, that's the best you've got? I bet your knowledge of linguistics outside your little hub of, oh, whatever, isn't terribly strong.

  5. Re:I got a hint for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is Al Talent, and why are the Chinese looking for him?

  6. education in the U.S. should be USA first and not by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 0

    education in the U.S. should be USA first and not being more open to higher paying international students.

  7. Hoho by fubarrr · · Score: 1

    Laowai shopping never went out of fashion with Chinese dot com crowd

  8. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yup, it's all about ME! ME! ME!

  9. Emigration easier now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Trump henchmen even supply the tar, feathers, and rails at all conference exits.

    1. Re:Emigration easier now by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Evidence?

    2. Re:Emigration easier now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Evidence for this is legion in his policy and statements, fuckstick

    3. Re:Emigration easier now by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      So you can't cite any? Or say anything without making up whole new insult words? WTF is a 'fuckstick' exactly? Is it some sort of sex toy?

    4. Re:Emigration easier now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's what his mother calls him. Don't ask why, it's not pretty.

  10. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    education in the U.S. should be USA first and not being more open to higher paying international students.

    yes indeed that's why schools are so bad in kansas, it's all those foreigners

  11. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

    If only it was that simple. The problem is that US students go to college for the experience, not the education. I can't recall a single parent even caring about the grades their kid made. Most don't even know what grades their kids are making. As long as their child is happy, they are happy.

  12. Re: education in the U.S. should be USA first and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is. An axiomatic truism is that the world is governed via the aggressive use of force. Iâ(TM)m not telling you how it should be, rather how it is.

    All this AI will lead to is war. All of human progress leads to war.

    âoeI don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war.â -Georges Clemenceau

  13. BTW by fubarrr · · Score: 1

    BTW, with all that AI research bandoozle going within Baidu, they can't even beat Google search accuracy from 10 years ago...

    I doubt they will ever improve, no matter how much Ivy league grads they hire, unless they disadopt that cargo-cultish view of the industry they got from the Silicon Valley.

    The few SV companies that do perform well, do so exactly because they refuse to go along the local koolaid culture

  14. slaves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like the riggers, the Chinese have been eugenically modified by their governments to be unable to actualize themselves without the direction of leaders, so they will willingly live in a nazi police state.

  15. Small wonder by nospam007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chinese students believe in artificial intelligence while US students believe in intelligent design.

    1. Re:Small wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has exactly nothing to do with religion but you're finding a way to force your atheism into a conversation anyway? Is this how you spend your time?

    2. Re:Small wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut the fuck up you retard belieber, no one wants your fucking god here

    3. Re:Small wonder by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This story isn't really news. Chinese companies have been turning up at the top computer science conferences (not just AI) for years and recruiting. So have US companies, though they've been doing it longer. It might have been news 10 years ago when companies like Huawei first started appearing at the recruitment desks, but it's been going on so long now that the only way that it pretends to be news is that someone has noticed that AI conferences are treated like the rest of computer science now.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Small wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet the people who are "retards" don't want you here either, troll.

  16. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wouldn't matter. China has tons of dollars, you like dollars, right? So do those who offer education in exchange for money.

    "Shut up and take my money."

  17. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

    Its is, but there is simply not enough smart Americans around.

    Hell when about 7% of American adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows... and captain Covefefe thinks he "like a smart person", you just know you are in trouble.

    And not everything invented in the USA has been invented by an American.

    If you get rid of all the smart people, soon you will be just left with the stupid ones.

  18. My experience with Chinese grad students by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    here in the US at a top-5 engineering program about 8 years ago.

    A third of them are bright and chipper but too obsequious to learn well. Embarrassed to ask for help, and all too quick to waste time praising your intelligence when they do. Go off to nowhere for weeks at a time, and then present a bunch of nonsense because they didn't acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge and just threw everything at the wall. We all have these limits, but most of us from here who make it to research-heavy grad schools have the good sense to ask questions based on those limits instead of trying to hide them and hoping for the best.

    Another third is here on vacation. They've got connections back home, which is how they scored their spot abroad, and they view grad school as subsidized playtime to take trips and go shopping instead of buckling down and working. They've already got a sweet lined up back home, and their stint in the US is a box to check off. Not just Chinese, I've seen some Indians fall into this category too. Not many Americans. Americans don't tend to go to grad school for vacation.

    The last third is comparable to the bulk of American students. Some are better than others, some are worse but they're there to work.

    So whose more likely to bite on the shiny back home being offered at these recruitment events? Probably not that last third.

    1. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A third of them are bright and chipper but too obsequious to learn well. Embarrassed to ask for help, and all too quick to waste time praising your intelligence when they do. Go off to nowhere for weeks at a time, and then present a bunch of nonsense because they didn't acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge and just threw everything at the wall. We all have these limits, but most of us from here who make it to research-heavy grad schools have the good sense to ask questions based on those limits instead of trying to hide them and hoping for the best.

      That sounds about right, the Chinese ones tended to be too scared to admit their ignorance and ask even simple questions. Meanwhile the Indians just ask to copy your lab notes and try to pass of your own work as their own.

    2. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This makes me angry. You've inadvertently setup a fallacious argument based on your limited sample and oversimplified categories. This is classic misdirection.

      Have you considered that there are more categories of Chinese students than you have proposed? Or that Chinese people, like most people, are complex human beings that defy nicely defined boxes even though they share broad cultural traits with their compatriots?

      More likely you never interacted with the students, and have never befriended the top n percentile of Chinese students. I have, and they are very good. They don't belong to any third that you describe.

    3. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > That sounds about right, the Chinese ones tended to be too scared to admit their ignorance and ask even simple questions. Meanwhile the Indians just ask to copy your lab notes and try to pass of your own work as their own.

      This is an ignorant comment that is calculated to make the poster feel good about themselves by putting others down.

    4. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      For the purpose of my argument, which was to assert the limited yield from these sorts of recruiting efforts, I have just the right number of categories. I don't understand why you'd be agree about it, AC, unless I've struck a nerve with my less than flattering description of people (plural) I've met, worked with, and watched operate over several years.

    5. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      No, for all you know it's the opposite of "ignorant," which is to say "well-informed." Probably through first-hand experience.

    6. Re: My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exterminate shitty smelly parasites H1B hindu-chimps.

      Chinese are hard working people. On the other hand, shitty smelly hindu-chimps are here to invade America and take your place.

    7. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ... the Chinese ones tended to be too scared to admit their ignorance ...

      Substitute "Chinese" with "Blacks", and the SJWs be yelling "RACIST !" at you

      But since this is Slashdot, where the SJWs are encouraged to openly express their hatreds towards the Chinese, I guess your comment has garnered the Seal of Approval

    8. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it is not, and you do not have the correct categories. You are committing the logical fallacy of generalizing from a limited sample + fallacy of the undistributed middle, and constructing your arguments on an baseline whose bias is pre-selected. It could well that your observations are correct for your sample (and even then, I question how well you actually know the people you purport to observe -- it's easy to make generalizations from surface observations especially if you don't have proper controls), but extrapolating it to fit the context of the article in question, which addresses a much broader sample is incorrect and dishonest.

      I think your RightwingNutjob monicker suits you.

      I am conservative too, but your mode of argumentation is intellectually dishonest and I do not appreciate that.

    9. Re:My experience with Chinese grad students by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

      and yet, he's signing his comments, while yours are just AC.
      Like mine.
      Which mean nothing.

  19. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

    Experience is the education. Experience of life among engineering students and engineering professors prepares you to experience the rest of your life among engineers.

  20. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    My parents stopped caring about me when I was 18. HS grades, maybe. 18, you're an adult now. Deal with your own problems.

  21. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    education in the U.S. should be USA first and not being more open to higher paying international students.

    At the university where I work, there is a push from various groups (including faculty) to admit MORE international graduate students simply because they bring in more money. The reasoning is - while we are supposed to be prioritizing in-state applicants, over the past few decades the state has drastically cut the overall percentage of the university's budget which it funds... so why should we continue to follow rules which were set when the state paid the majority of the university's operating budget?

    Note: I'm not arguing this is good or bad... just that it is a thing.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  22. Re:education in the U.S. should be USA first and n by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

    Most milk comes from Holstein cows, ~7% of which are brown.

  23. where is Sarah Conner? by Thud457 · · Score: 2

    "The Capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them." -- 6 Lenin

    Wait, I already used that one regarding Facebook/Twitter.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  24. Amazon, stop suggesting things I've already bought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Amazon, stop suggesting things I've already bought, please!

    I don't need another firepit or more underwear or another USB drive enclosure. 1 is enough.

    Now, if you want to tell me about it a year later, perhaps I could use some new underwear then. I'm not gonna need another firepit or USB enclosure, however.
    Get that AI crap working already, please.

  25. Re:Amazon, stop suggesting things I've already bou by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Amazon, stop suggesting things I've already bought, please!

    so you're still using the same toothbrush and the same underwear that your bought 20 years ago?

  26. Brain Drain by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Brain Drain is beginning.At least one of the parties is actively anti- knowledge, and anti science.

    And vehemently anti immigrant. Hey that's all right . Money and Jesus are all we need.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:Brain Drain by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Anti-science? Remind us again how many genders there are.

      Anti-knowledge? Remind us who exactly has been chasing academics down with baseball bats?

      Anti-immigrant? Plenty of immigrants consistently vote for border enforcement and deportation of fence-hoppers.

      Try again.

    2. Re:Brain Drain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uhm, The USA are now all those things. Fewer foreign students come to the US for studies.

    3. Re:Brain Drain by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Anti-science? Remind us again how many genders there are.

      There are only two. Male, and female. There are some intergender people, but if you have trouble figuring out what is what - have them drop trou, and do an inspection

      Anti-knowledge?

      Using nutjobs is not a very good tactic of trying to smear anyone who isn't a Republican. Both parties have nutjobs. But just so you know, here are Republicans that have been elected, therefore are supported by the mainstream Republican party. Whack-a-doodles are not in firm control of the Democrats. Let us look at a few of these people have to say: https://www.npr.org/2011/09/07...

      But then, your little diversion isn't my point at all. If Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution, or Rick Santorum believes that the world was created exactly as in Genisis 1, well I could hardly give a rat's ass. If you want to believe the sun rotates around the earth, or is a burning lump of coal, or that somehow enough water rained out of the sky to cover the entire earth in 40 days from sea level to the top of Everest, (do the math on that) and that the animals in Australia swam to the middle east across the ocean to avoid drowning, well, I support that.

      But making policy on all of that is demonstrably anti-science, and it is exactly mainstream Republican dogma. The outliers like John Huntsman are exactly that - the outlier- the exception that proves the rule. Meanwhile, we need to settle if Genesis 1 or 2 is the correct order of creation.

      And if some left wing doofus wants to declare that there are an infinite number of genders, or that crystal harmonics rule the universe, the same holds. I am pro science, not pro policy. And right now, the team that is in power, the team that controls what happens is not. And just as in other anti-science countries, a brain drain will occur.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:Brain Drain by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Rick Santorum hasn't held an elected office in twelve years. He lost that office after the people of Pennsylviania, the same people that voted for both Trump and Obama, had enough with his theatrics. The grandstanding over Terri Schiavo's body is what did it for most people. I lived in PA at the time, and I voted for him out of spite for the Dems, but I held my nose doing it.

      And if you think the craziest thing about Ron Paul is creationism...well OK.

      Bottom line: people vote for extremists all the time. Sometimes polar opposites. Life isn't binary, but most American elections are.

    5. Re:Brain Drain by neo-mkrey · · Score: 2

      I think you meant to say coal and Jesus.

    6. Re:Brain Drain by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

      You know, I've been thinking about this, in my admitedly limited capacity. It seems everyone I know is constantly holding their nose and voting for someone they mostly disagree with. i think if we can get past this, we may find a solution.

    7. Re:Brain Drain by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I think you meant to say coal and Jesus.

      My bad!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  27. Re: I got a hint for you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Out of all Als my favorite is probably Al Pacino.
    Do you think Chinese will go after him too?

  28. Intro by arjun+dmkt · · Score: 1

    Nice artilces

  29. Our loss, their gain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I created a ResearchGate account to review specific research I had trouble finding elsewhere. My profile is essentially bare with the exception of AI research tags.

    The following week I logged back in and noticed hundreds of people had viewed my profile. Literally every single one was a Chinese national. During this time I also received multiple spear phishing attempts, which were pretty well crafted.

    This was of no surprise to me. But it was just plain frightening to see firsthand the levels of industrial espionage coming from âoeThat Countryâ. And scarier still to think of all the researchers I have known who have nearly zero comprehension of data security. Itâ(TM)s no wonder they have become our technological peer so quickly. Stealing is a hell of a lot easier than doing legitimate work, especially when your motherland rewards it.

    A harrowing experience is watching a visiting faculty member or student drop a USB drive on the ground and walk away. Good luck avoiding a racist label while trying to report such suspicious behavior to any liberal university. Even mentioning âoeThat Countryâ in anything but a positive light can lead to serious career repercussions.

    Itâ(TM)s just plain fucked.