U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#351

Post by alasdair_ » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

laputan_machine wrote: post #287

alasdair_ wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not yet. But 20 years ago, we weren't having this conversation of China even being seen as a threat. Twenty years ago, Japan was the "threat" and the zeitgeist was full of tropes of Japanese technology taking over the world.

Japan wasn't run by a dictator, didn't have tens of thousands of people from a particular religious group placed into concentration camps, or owned so much stock in particular US companies that they can get those very same US companies to bend over to their demands. It's not the same, and you know that.

I was talking about the economic threat. I completely agree that The Japan of twenty years ago was a much freer place than China today and that they are not the same thing in terms of authoritarianism.

Economically though, the two situations are similar.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#352

Post by Linq123 » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 11:59 PM UTC

BiasRegularizer wrote: post #306

govg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong with the "large margin" terms. A lot of Chinese universities have stepped up in the recent past. You can take a look here : http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2017/toyear/2019/index?ai&v... 3 of the top 10 (all in the top 5 even) are Chinese in origin. This is a list of publications at the top venues in AI / ML for the past two years. If you extend it to past 5 years, you get a slightly better picture, but…

The keyword is "high impact". The link you provided is only ranked by publication count, it doesn't consider the impact factor of journal/conferences. If you look at stats from ICML this year[0], the only Chinese institution TsingHua is ranked #13 in the top #20 list. Take a look at recent major advances in deep learning: information bottle neck, mask-rcnn, transformer, normalizing flow, all originated from US/Canadi…

>Chinese academia has very serious systematic issues that discourages innovation and encourages quantity over quality.

Can you elaborate on that?

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#353

Post by bassman9000 » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 12:45 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #179

bassman9000 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would have given a lot of power to corporations to combat China How? Apple and the NBA just bent to China's wishes. How would that have worked out?

The NBA rescinded that IIRC

Rescinded what? We just experienced how quickly they'll throw anyone under the bus if it harms their chinese market. For the downvotes: how would the TTP have helped companies police this?

edit: https://twitter.com/i/events/1182034806474825728

even at home

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#354

Post by mirimir » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

knowledge102 wrote: post #324

mirimir wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your points. However, about this ... > The threat from China has been existent and ignored for the past 30 years, the same 30 years that China rose from 3rd world country to the superpower it is today. ... I'm moved to note that it was Kissinger, as part of the post-WWII globalization effort, who helped China industrialize. As I understand it, the idea is that war is less likely among nations, at…

The Kissinger move was more to diminish the power of the Soviet Union, by straying China away from them. You're right, war is less likely among nations with strongly linked economies. The important thing to note is that, at the same time, the survival self-interest of a county to dominant the other does not go away. Which means that economic interdependence only helps avoid war so long as war itself doesn't provide m…

Yes, I totally agree.

There was already conflict between China and the Soviet Union. But yes, that increased as China gradually introduced capitalism, with decreasing emphasis on central planning.

And that intervention did indeed finally jump start economic development and modern industrialization in China. After the catastrophic Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. But that didn't include national-level democracy and Western-style individual rights and freedoms. Likely contrary to Kissenger's expectations.

So yes, China might become the dominant world power. And that might roll back some global consequences of the European Enlightenment. Who would have thought?

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#355

Post by Linq123 » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 9:56 AM UTC

knowledge102 wrote: post #320

vkou wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A systemic threat to what? It's own people? Is that our problem? [1] Uncooperative neighbours? We, here in the US, have posed, do pose, and continue to pose a threat to uncooperative nations across the entire world. Our domestic economy? All problems with it are entirely of our own doing. Globalization killing the middle class? That's not a China problem, that's a domestic political problem. And yes, general tariffs…

I care about avoiding war and avoiding exploitation. Historically, the best way to avoid major wars, is to have a major power or an allies of power (possible in multipolar word), or strong enough attack power(nukes) to scare off the idea of war -- i.e a strong enough deterrent to make going war be a bad idea. No one wants to go to war if they know they will be destroyed. Like how a robber won't rob a house if they kn…

>I agree that the U.S. has done some horrible things during it's hegemony, and I do not support them. But the brutal reality is that, others would do the same to us.

This is what nazis was saying in the wake of loosing war in East front, or Britis when they start loosing colonies one after another, turned out not all civilizations are as vindictive and machiavellian in nature as some of western countries are. Nobody put all whites or even nazis in death camps in Germany, or even made sure it's economicaly backwards, also nobody sought retaliations from Britain even after it ceased to exist as global superpower.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#356

Post by mrlala » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #348

mrlala wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Whoa - its possible to have dental care and go to the doctor for most things, and not cost $20K per year. How do you figure that? My health care premiums are $1350 a month for a 10k deductible and 30% co-insurance. My dental premiums are $200/mo.That is $1550/mo WITHOUT any out of pocket costs even. I'm a the premera bronze plan. This isn't even a gold plan. There are a couple plans that are _slightly_ less expensiv…

The point I was attempting to make was, we rarely spend $20K a year on actual dental and miscellaneous medical expenses. Its the catastrophic stuff that's the real, entire reason for the insurance. Clear?

>we rarely spend $20K a year on actual dental and miscellaneous medical expenses

Yes and no.. I'm estimating $20k/4 = $5k/person for dental/medical. I mean.. with the arbitrary costs of things, that's not too insane. To say "rarely" doesn't do it justice.. pregnancy+kid? That's probably AT LEAST $15k without complications, so that boosts up the average. Young kids need a lot of visits/stuff..

Anyway, yeah I still agree that $5k/person is a bit high on what is actually spent by people if we took the whole population. Although there are so many extremes that bump up the numbers that maybe it isn't?

>Its the catastrophic stuff that's the real, entire reason for the insurance.

I agree with that.. sort of. But I think it's a misnomer to call "health insurance" just insurance.. I'm also supposed to use "health insurance" for annual visits to make sure everyone is ok. That's not insurance, that is simply keeping people healthy and a NECESSITY.

"Life insurance" is for the very unlikely situation that I will die in my 30s, and I want my family to have some security if I do.

"Health insurance" is an absolute NECESSITY because people get sick, they break bones, they have babies. We lump all this normal stuff to stay healthy in the same category as "cancer" or a massive car accident.

>Clear?

Not at all. Because you haven't given me any options. I 100% NEED "health insurance" or rather "regular health care + health insurance for the extreme" for my family. Agreed? My options are to either pay this ridiculous amount of money or have no insurance and "hope for the best". What a great country we are!

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#357

Post by knowledge102 » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

Linq123 wrote: post #355

knowledge102 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care about avoiding war and avoiding exploitation. Historically, the best way to avoid major wars, is to have a major power or an allies of power (possible in multipolar word), or strong enough attack power(nukes) to scare off the idea of war -- i.e a strong enough deterrent to make going war be a bad idea. No one wants to go to war if they know they will be destroyed. Like how a robber won't rob a house if they kn…

>I agree that the U.S. has done some horrible things during it's hegemony, and I do not support them. But the brutal reality is that, others would do the same to us. This is what nazis was saying in the wake of loosing war in East front, or Britis when they start loosing colonies one after another, turned out not all civilizations are as vindictive and machiavellian in nature as some of western countries are. Nobody…

The exact actions, depend on the people in charge ultimately. But if I had to bet that the Chinese government, with a track record for organ harvesting their own people, having forced labor camps of chinese Uyghurs, and "disappearing" anyone who criticizes, would treat their subjects nicely, then I would probably lose that bet.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#358

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

silexia wrote: post #317

andrewmb wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to understand about China is that domestic alternatives to international products, especially in 'sensitive' industries (basically anything technologically significant) is ALREADY a core government goal and a major cornerstone of their tech, IP, and political policy . The CCP has stated on many occasions--going back years --that their goal is to eliminate any reliance on non-Chinese firms. This has more urg…

The other thing to understand though is that in a dictatorship people do not have economic freedom or the incentives to truly do the hard work necessary to build this industries. If the United States cuts off support for China and these industries, China will fall far behind unless it can steal the technologies. This is the fate of most dictatorships.

> in a dictatorship people do not have economic freedom or the incentives to truly do the hard work necessary to build this industries.

At the end of the Ming dynasty, there was a commercial family dominating the sea trade out of the southern coast. When the Qing took power, they told the family patriarch he could keep everything, as long as he was willing to swear loyalty to the new dynasty. He immediately did so.

His son, however, issued a rousing formal denunciation of his father, questioning how anyone whose oath to the Ming had been sincere could betray them at the drop of a hat like that. It was so persuasive that it convinced the Manchus, who threw the patriarch in prison -- devolving control of the whole enterprise onto the Ming-loyalist son. He went into open rebellion, took his hundreds of ships and thousands of seamen to Taiwan, and waged war on the Qing for decades. His rebellion was only ended when the Qing took the dramatic step of fully evacuating the coastline to prevent anyone from supporting him from the mainland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga

Dictatorships allow quite a bit of freedom.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#359

Post by madcapmac » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

onepointsixC wrote: post #307

madcapmac wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I procure cameras for some systems development we are doing for the DoD. Hikvision and Dahua are both specifically banned by law. The number of American companies simply rebranding banned cameras and stamping "Manufactured in America" on them was a bit of a shock.

Any non Chinese manufacturers you can recommend?

Try:

https://www.pelco.com/ndaa

https://www.securitysales.com/surveillance/honeywell-30-seri...

Careful with the Honeywell stuff. They are a "rebrander". However, the 30 series cameras claim to be compliant.

Here's an interesting article about the Army getting caught up in that trap:

https://ipvm.com/reports/gordon-honeywell

Look for NDAA Section 889 compliance when searching.

Re: U.S. widens trade blacklist to include some of China’s top AI startups

#360

Post by majia » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #305

majia wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seized were not fentanyl, but some chemicals could be used in the fentanyl manufacturing process, as well as many other legitimate use. If you want to stop fentanyl, the best thing to do is to figure out what chemicals are used exclusively in fentayl production and build an international coalition to ban those. Unfortunately many people just don't appreciate this kind of sophistication and prefer an easier blame…

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting the Chinese people are stupid defense. I guess they have no idea who their customers are or what their products are being used for.

In low end manufacturing sector it's really hard to know your end customers. The products are highly standardized and can go though multiple middlemen. Also the sheer volume, most of which are legitimate, makes it very difficult for governments to track.