China may match or beat America in AI • Hacker News Board

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#51

Post by bitcuration » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

Mostly the advantage that China has, other than probably a large pool of math educated engineers and abundant data thanks to China's aggressive surveillance, is that things would be unethical or hard to move forwarded under current regulation, would be much easier in China.

Ironically, underlining in this article is that acknowledgement of such often unethical or act in doubt are perhaps essential and critical to AI's future development. To that, China is at a clear advantage than America, and the rest of civilized west world.

A strong economy is also necessary to propel the development, or Russia would also be at a advantage similar to China's, or North Karea's. But only China has the economy incentivization similar to West's.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#52

Post by callmeal » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #29

70% of the US budget is inexorably allocated to entitlements, interest on debt, and welfare. The rubicon of 100% US Debt-to GDP will soon be crossed. Many US states are hanging on to solvency by a thread. Corporations and banks have sequestered hundreds of billions in cash waiting for signs of US fiscal stability. And what does the media want to talk about? Russian spies and Chinese A.I. Rome burns and everyone is as…

You are way off.

10% goes to welfare. 6% goes to interest on debt. 16% goes to defense. 25% goes to CHIP/medicare/medicaid. (25% to social security, but that has a separate tax inflow and is a net positive to the budget.)

see: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-w...

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#53

Post by ausjke » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

first, it catches up with economics, second, the rising middle class demand for more democracy to upgrade the existing political system, smoothly hopefully, and last they begin to beat US all around, purely due to the population and an education first tradition, with east-asia's above-average IQ as the base and the much-better economy as the booster.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#54

Post by seppin » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #29

70% of the US budget is inexorably allocated to entitlements, interest on debt, and welfare. The rubicon of 100% US Debt-to GDP will soon be crossed. Many US states are hanging on to solvency by a thread. Corporations and banks have sequestered hundreds of billions in cash waiting for signs of US fiscal stability. And what does the media want to talk about? Russian spies and Chinese A.I. Rome burns and everyone is as…

100% US Debt-to GDP would still put it ahead of most EU countries, LA, MENA, etc.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#55

Post by Leader2light » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

Here I was looking for the Dr. Strangelove equivalent of the "AI Gap" :-) Given that in the next four years it is likely that more than half of the PhDs awarded by top US schools are awarded to foreign nationals[1], and our current government policy is to restrict immigration as much as possible, we are on a path to insuring that soon the world will have a much better pool of talent to draw on to do the research than…

Immigration is not the solution. Do you have any idea how restrictive China is on immigration?

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#56

Post by justicezyx » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

Leader2light wrote: post #55

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

Here I was looking for the Dr. Strangelove equivalent of the "AI Gap" :-) Given that in the next four years it is likely that more than half of the PhDs awarded by top US schools are awarded to foreign nationals[1], and our current government policy is to restrict immigration as much as possible, we are on a path to insuring that soon the world will have a much better pool of talent to draw on to do the research than…

Immigration is not the solution. Do you have any idea how restrictive China is on immigration?

The point is that Top Chinese PhDs got degrees from Top us schools are forced back. Not that immigration are needed for China.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#57

Post by flyinglizard » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

Leader2light wrote: post #55

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

Here I was looking for the Dr. Strangelove equivalent of the "AI Gap" :-) Given that in the next four years it is likely that more than half of the PhDs awarded by top US schools are awarded to foreign nationals[1], and our current government policy is to restrict immigration as much as possible, we are on a path to insuring that soon the world will have a much better pool of talent to draw on to do the research than…

Immigration is not the solution. Do you have any idea how restrictive China is on immigration?

The point is that educating the best minds of the world and then expelling them to their origin countries is not a wise practice.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#58

Post by seppin » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:48 PM UTC

Will_Do wrote: post #30

kyleschiller wrote: post #19

If you're going to comment about the "Chinese takeover" please take 2 minutes to at least read the first paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril 'The Yellow Peril (also Yellow Terror and Yellow Spectre) is a racist color-metaphor that is integral to the xenophobic theory of colonialism: that the peoples of East Asia are a danger to the Western world. As a psycho-cultural perception of menace from the Eas…

What a strange comment. Why do you think this has anything to do with racism? Is anything claiming an Asian country is doing better than a white country Yellow Peril? If not, why is this an instance of it?

> What a strange comment.

Indeed. Textbook projection

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#59

Post by justicezyx » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

bitcuration wrote: post #51

Mostly the advantage that China has, other than probably a large pool of math educated engineers and abundant data thanks to China's aggressive surveillance, is that things would be unethical or hard to move forwarded under current regulation, would be much easier in China. Ironically, underlining in this article is that acknowledgement of such often unethical or act in doubt are perhaps essential and critical to AI'…

Spot on.

Among all the things, this is the fundamental advantage China has over other nations. Chinese government can do things that no other are capable.

Re: China may match or beat America in AI

#60

Post by erva » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #35

Here I was looking for the Dr. Strangelove equivalent of the "AI Gap" :-) Given that in the next four years it is likely that more than half of the PhDs awarded by top US schools are awarded to foreign nationals[1], and our current government policy is to restrict immigration as much as possible, we are on a path to insuring that soon the world will have a much better pool of talent to draw on to do the research than…

Not to sound like an anti-intellectual, but it could be a mistake to assume that innovation comes from academia. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a convincing chapter (I think it is Chapter 13: Lecturing Birds to Fly) in his book "Antifragile" about this very thing.

Then there are cultural differences that could be at play concerning innovation. It is a general observation that east asian cultures tend to suppress risk-taking and innovation. Whereas, western cultures seem to promote risk-taking and innovation. That is not to say that there aren't risk takers in China and risk averse individuals in the West...just that overall there may be asymmetry. And, very little asymmetry can create very big differences.

So, have all the smartest people you want, doing all the research you want; but if they have no pressure to put that research to practice, nor a desire or support to take the risks associated with implementation then you might as well have nobody doing anything.

Just a thought.