Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#21

Post by opportune » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:26 PM UTC

kercker wrote: post #19

opportune wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but in my opinion a researcher who first publishes X result is usually the best equipped to first publish (or not publish, simply discover/use) Y result which depends on X. If we freely gave all US military research to Zimbabwe they wouldn't develop a top-tier military program because they don't have the expertise to understand and implement the knowledge that we have. This isn't the case with China

Isn't something published available to all the world? If Google first publishes some result X, and Chinese researchers find this result, they are free to use this result to publish some result Y, regardless of whether Google opens an AI center in China.

This will sound condescending, but it's not meant to be,

The short answer is no. The field of research is completely fucked up. You are incentivized to explain your research in as much detail as is required to get a top publication (which honestly isn't much, just look at NIPS this year, there are a ton of overly vague, "exploratory" pubs that really describe jack-shit) but absolutely no further, as this could allow a competitor to fully continue your research and get the next major pub from it. So you want to describe enough so that people understand your research at a high level, but so that nobody can truly understand at a technical level what you've done.

So in essence no, research isn't something that is as freely communicable as publications. It really does require personal expertise, in the sense that there is a ton of knowledge contained in experts that you can't find anywhere in publications.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#22

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:29 PM UTC

kercker wrote: post #15

equalunique wrote: post #12

Did anyone else here grow up being told that the Chinese government stole search technology from Google when they tried to do business there, and this is how Baidu got started?

Once www.people.cn (the website of People's Daily) built a search engine and failed. If Chinese government stole search technology from Google, why would it give it to Baidu not to a search engine set up by its mouthpiece? Baidu had already been popular in China before Google officially entered China, so there is no 'this is how Baidu got started' thing.

No idea if they stole anything and I wouldn't/couldn't/won't make any claims about that etc. but what I've seen of Baidu's open sourced offerings, they are based on Google's publically promoted/published designs down to the types of components (their own implementations of protobuf RPC, GFS, etc.), class names, API C++ style, etc.

Lots of others have done this (some parts of Facebook, too) and I don't think this was based on Google source code or anything, but it doesn't exactly smell terribly innovative on its own?

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#23

Post by vatueil » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:34 PM UTC

dis-sys wrote: post #4

When google initially entered the Chinese market more than a decade ago, it offered a censored version of google search conformed to the censorship requirements set by the Chinese government. It argued that the most ethical option was to offer some restricted services to Chinese rather than leave hundreds of millions of Chinese Internet users with limited access to information [1]. Basically it argued that Chinese ne…

Google.cn was better than the alternatives, since it at least disclosed when search results had to be censored (sorta like the notices when links are removed due to copyright takedowns). Of course the CPC didn't like that, and it was probably one of the things which ultimately led to Google leaving/being driven out of China.

It would have been much more profitable to simply comply rather than lose the Chinese market, as numerous other Western companies have done.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#24

Post by opportune » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:40 PM UTC

kercker wrote: post #18

opportune wrote: post #6

Perhaps this is because I don't have the hard facts and figures right in front of me, but I have a hard time believing that foreign tech investments in China really pay off. The Chinese strategy seems to be to woo big foreign companies, build a critical mass of local users who want the product, ban or otherwise limit the foreign company's influence in China, then develop a home-grown Chinese version of the foreign co…

An AI center is not a product like a search engine or Windows, or an e-commerce site. It helps China cultivate talents, why would China limit its influence. MSRA accomplishes many things worthwhile such as ResNet in China, and it prospers now. Some researchers enter MSRA, and some leave. They enter or leave not because the government force them to do so, they enter or leave because they can tell where opportunity res…

I'm not asking why China would limit it, I'm asking what Google gains from it.

If Google's top talent in China will mostly be poached within the next 10 years, is it really worthwhile to open a research center there? MSRA is a very good example, but at the end of the day, it's still a training ground for Chinese researchers. Paradoxically, the more important it is that Chinese researchers work on at Google China, the more likely that Google is to lose those researchers to government or private competitors.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#25

Post by musage » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:42 PM UTC

kercker wrote: post #13

mtgx wrote: post #2

When we'll look back 20 years from now, we'll we see Google in the same light as we did IBM after helping the Nazi with their computers? Will Google allow its DeepMind technology to be used to spy on Chinese citizens and dissidents?

I find your argument rather lame. First, Chinese government is not Nazi and Google is not IBM. You can't just say that a government is Nazi just because you hate that government. Second, even if Google openly broke with Chinese government, it still has offices in China. I doubt that Google opens an AI center in China to "allow its DeepMind technology to be used to spy on Chinese citizens and dissidents", and I do thi…

There is a difference between an analogy and a comparison. Just think of it as it working with murderers for commercial gain, and try again, as far as the analogy is concerned.

China is plenty totalitarian, too, so even as a comparison it's not that far off (though you won't be able to follow comparisons either if you think things have to be exactly the same thing to be compared). You might even say the Nazis weren't Nazis before they started and lost their war; if they had stuck with, say, attacking Poland and Russia, and had kept their concentration camps secret (i.e. plausibly deniable), they still might be darlings of Western business elites even today, as Hitler was before the stuff we now have 20/20 hindsight on.

Last but not least, a big ambition is living a life you then don't have to lie to yourself about. Compared to that, "advancing AI" isn't even an ambition, nevermind a big one.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#26

Post by paradite » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #20

paradite wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spying on citizens and dissidents, even if true, is nothing close to Nazis. For the record, - China was on the opposite side of Nazis in WW2 - China has 56 ethnic groups and has no plan to "cleanse" any of them

The fact is Communist China has a very deep history of "cleansing" what they define as undesirables, which continues today in various forms. Today (and for decades now) they're aggressively attempting to "cleanse" homosexuals using state resources, torturing thousands of people. [1][2] China's Communist system also "cleansed" a vast number of people throughout its recent history. Over two decades they murdered (or se…

So assuming what you described is true, why hasn't the rest of the world declared war against the communist China?

Because it's not close to what Nazis did. And that's my point.

Btw, from the articles that you linked, it is quite clear that treating LGBT as disease is not a government policy. In fact, it is against the law. The government doesn't actively hunt for LGBT people and send them for treatment. In fact I think they are less concerned about homosexuality than the churches are.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#27

Post by gurkendoktor » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 1:51 PM UTC

paradite wrote: post #14

mtgx wrote: post #2

When we'll look back 20 years from now, we'll we see Google in the same light as we did IBM after helping the Nazi with their computers? Will Google allow its DeepMind technology to be used to spy on Chinese citizens and dissidents?

Spying on citizens and dissidents, even if true, is nothing close to Nazis. For the record, - China was on the opposite side of Nazis in WW2 - China has 56 ethnic groups and has no plan to "cleanse" any of them

All capable governments are spying on their dissidents. However, the CCP also detains dissidents on the basis of its spying even in low-profile cases[1], and has been using prisoners (in other words, more dissidents) as a source of organ "donations" for a long time[2]. All the articles I've read about this topic are about specific religious groups (Uyghurs/Falun Gong). The Chinese treatment of Islam is so openly hostile that it would make Breitbart proud[3]. China is (thankfully) not ethnically cleansing Tibetans, but they are at least cleansing its culture[4]. Also, hi from Taiwan, so thousands of CCP missiles are pointing at the city around me.

I agree that you can't compare the NSDAP to the CCP. But doing business with China is still a very different thing from dealing with most other countries (regardless of whose side they were on in 1945).

[1] http://www.zeit.de/feature/freedom-of-press-china-zhang-miao... [2] https://international.thenewslens.com/article/82726 [3] https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2015/05/05/china-orde... [4] https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/china-tears-down-the-tibetan...

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#28

Post by baby » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #2

When we'll look back 20 years from now, we'll we see Google in the same light as we did IBM after helping the Nazi with their computers? Will Google allow its DeepMind technology to be used to spy on Chinese citizens and dissidents?

You don't like China. So cute

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#29

Post by LostInTheWoods2 » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #24

kercker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AI center is not a product like a search engine or Windows, or an e-commerce site. It helps China cultivate talents, why would China limit its influence. MSRA accomplishes many things worthwhile such as ResNet in China, and it prospers now. Some researchers enter MSRA, and some leave. They enter or leave not because the government force them to do so, they enter or leave because they can tell where opportunity res…

I'm not asking why China would limit it, I'm asking what Google gains from it. If Google's top talent in China will mostly be poached within the next 10 years, is it really worthwhile to open a research center there? MSRA is a very good example, but at the end of the day, it's still a training ground for Chinese researchers. Paradoxically, the more important it is that Chinese researchers work on at Google China, the…

On one hand, I have to agree that China's closed/censored society is directly at odds with the product offering of a company like Google ... on the other hand, does one simply disengage from such a massive market as China? Perhaps Google is betting on a future when there is greater freedom for the Chinese people.

Re: Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China

#30

Post by skybrian » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #24

kercker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AI center is not a product like a search engine or Windows, or an e-commerce site. It helps China cultivate talents, why would China limit its influence. MSRA accomplishes many things worthwhile such as ResNet in China, and it prospers now. Some researchers enter MSRA, and some leave. They enter or leave not because the government force them to do so, they enter or leave because they can tell where opportunity res…

I'm not asking why China would limit it, I'm asking what Google gains from it. If Google's top talent in China will mostly be poached within the next 10 years, is it really worthwhile to open a research center there? MSRA is a very good example, but at the end of the day, it's still a training ground for Chinese researchers. Paradoxically, the more important it is that Chinese researchers work on at Google China, the…

Yes, employees can leave. How is that different from anywhere else? Google gains from whatever they were paid to do while working there.

It seems unlikely that competition for employees will be stronger in China than in Silicon Valley.