Few Countries Will Benefit From the AI Revolution (qz.com)

hackingbear writes from a report via Quartz: According to Chinese venture capitalist and former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee, the list of countries well-positioned to embrace a future powered by artificial intelligence is exceedingly short: United States and China. "The countries that are not in good shape are the countries that have perhaps a large population, but no AI, no technologies, no Google, no Tencent, no Baidu, no Alibaba, no Facebook, no Amazon," Lee says. "These people will basically be data points to countries whose software is dominant in their country. If a country in Africa uses largely Facebook and Google, they will be providing their data to help Facebook and Google make more money, but their jobs will still be replaced nevertheless." Originally, China's low labor costs might have helped the country modernize, Lee says, but as AI-driven automation takes hold in manufacturing, other countries that want to follow China's blueprint for economic growth probably wouldn't be able to rely on cheap labor alone.

Comments

Everyone benefits

[SuperKendall]

Even the poorest of countries will benefit directly from AI. It will mean improved everything - better materials, better components, better electronics made far more cheaply to the point where people in poor countries can afford them better.

In even the poorest of countries, most people have cell phones now. Why are you suddenly doubting some new and useful technology will make its way there?

Not to mention, as more and more things like automated tractors come to be, it makes it more practical to send equipment rather than cash to poor nations - which mean the people may actually get it, unlike the cash which seems to vanish before it ever reaches those it is meant to help.

Re:Everyone benefits

[BitterOak]

Exactly! Saying only the U.S. and China will benefit from AI would have been like saying that only the UK would benefit from the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th Century. Countries all over the world use machine-based factories and benefit from their invention even though it basically started in the UK.

Re: Everyone benefits

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a fallacy that comes from confusing wealth with money. Money is just numbers, there is no upper limit. Natural resources are very limited and are rapidly diminishing or have already been destroyed, mostly not to fulfill people's needs but to "make money". (An extreme and particularly absurd form of this is those idiots who heat up the planet to produce "coins" that are not even legal tender.)

Re: Everyone benefits

[_Sharp'r_]

As long as money can be used to purchase things, then it's a representation of wealth. Somehow I don't think you're going to send me all your money because you actually believe it's worthless.

Natural resources are very limited and are rapidly diminishing or have already been destroyed

And yet, somehow reserves of natural resources just keep staying about the same, year after year, decade after decade. It's almost like we're nowhere even remotely near running out of anything important. Oh, that's because your statement is more wishful thinking than reality.

Re:Totally disagree, dilsproportiatley benefits po

[mikael]

They are jumping straight to mobile phone networks and skipping landlines. For a fisherman wanting to sell fish, this allows him to find the best port to sell fish at the highest price. Coastal villages don't go hungry because they never got anyone to land a catch. A few text messages let them run like an Amazon marketplace.