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U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

reuters.com

121–130 of 220 posts

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#121
post #105
post #3

This assumes the US is ahead of China in image recognition. Is there any justification for that?

They use it for flight check-ins, entering the park, giving you a fine instantly for jaywalking, buying a soda from a vending machine, any many more use cases. I assume they are ahead.

I think this speaks more about the government and the acceptance of such things by the population rather than the state of research. Even in a hypothetical scenario of US being far ahead of China in the field at the moment, i do not see this kind of things going over well at all with the public in the US.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#122
post #37

Additional details are present in the unpublished rule (document 2019-27649 [1][2]). -- cut -- Geospatial imagery “software” “specially designed” for training a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery and point clouds, and having all of the following: 1. Provides a graphical user interface that enables the user to identify objects (e.g., vehicles, houses, etc.) from within geo…

It seems strangely ambiguous: "(geospatial imagery) and (point clouds)" or "geospatial (imagery and point clouds)"? Point 4 requires the use of geospatial imagery, so any point-cloud-only product would be exempt, it seems? The document doesn't define "geospatial imagery", but that could surely include hobby and commercial drone footage of the ground. Perhaps even ordinary photography from security cameras that have u…

Was doing similar work on a project using sonar imaging for the bottom of water bodies to much of what they're excluding. Not sure how concerned they'd be with identify freshwater creatures and riverbed structures...

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#123
post #103

Additional details are present in the unpublished rule (document 2019-27649 [1][2]). -- cut -- Geospatial imagery “software” “specially designed” for training a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery and point clouds, and having all of the following: 1. Provides a graphical user interface that enables the user to identify objects (e.g., vehicles, houses, etc.) from within geo…

This overly specific intersection of requirements is how you target a single product in legislation.

Looks to me like it fits all those "model training on a GUI" packages people are selling today.

That will place the US in a large economical disadvantage for those.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#124
post #104

It's funny: it reminds me of "strong cryptography export ban" in the 2000's (btw, Oracle java still have it: you must download strong crypto package separatly)... Obviously, it failed! You can stop a single vendor with unique technology to provide hardware components with bans, but you can't stop a whole field spreading knowledge!!! People come and go, meet, talk, write, exchange knowledges... so sooner or later (and…

> Oracle java still have it: you must download strong crypto package separatly Not true since java 8u161, and similarly for 7 and 6. And not true for every java > 8. https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce... http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8u161-relnotes...

True, though this update occurred only relatively recently, in 2016.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#125

It's funny: it reminds me of "strong cryptography export ban" in the 2000's (btw, Oracle java still have it: you must download strong crypto package separatly)... Obviously, it failed! You can stop a single vendor with unique technology to provide hardware components with bans, but you can't stop a whole field spreading knowledge!!! People come and go, meet, talk, write, exchange knowledges... so sooner or later (and…

As gross as the government-meddled Java crypto libraries made me feel, the fact that the meddling-free workaround library was called "bouncycastle" really made my day.

http://bouncycastle.org/

> Here at the Bouncy Castle, we believe in encryption. That's something that's near and dear to our hearts. We believe so strongly in encryption, that we've gone to the effort to provide some for everybody, and we've now been doing it for almost 20 years!

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#126
I sold AI software (for building expert systems) for Xerox Lisp Machines from 1982 to 1985 and the lawyers at my company complained that the $5K license price did not make up for the hassle for foreign sales (I sold to customers in Japan, Norway, and Germany). So, export controls are not such a new things.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#127
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use it for flight check-ins, entering the park, giving you a fine instantly for jaywalking, buying a soda from a vending machine, any many more use cases. I assume they are ahead.

I think this speaks more about the government and the acceptance of such things by the population rather than the state of research. Even in a hypothetical scenario of US being far ahead of China in the field at the moment, i do not see this kind of things going over well at all with the public in the US.

It gives opportunities to practice with the tech in ways US can't which might make them gain a lead.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#128
post #37

Additional details are present in the unpublished rule (document 2019-27649 [1][2]). -- cut -- Geospatial imagery “software” “specially designed” for training a Deep Convolutional Neural Network to automate the analysis of geospatial imagery and point clouds, and having all of the following: 1. Provides a graphical user interface that enables the user to identify objects (e.g., vehicles, houses, etc.) from within geo…

It seems strangely ambiguous: "(geospatial imagery) and (point clouds)" or "geospatial (imagery and point clouds)"? Point 4 requires the use of geospatial imagery, so any point-cloud-only product would be exempt, it seems? The document doesn't define "geospatial imagery", but that could surely include hobby and commercial drone footage of the ground. Perhaps even ordinary photography from security cameras that have u…

You’re forgetting that how the word “and” works in English is often not the same as logical AND, e.g. in “give me a list of people who live in New York and Los Angeles” the “and” means OR.

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#129
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so weird. Palantir put a GUI on Hadoop/whatever and that was enough to sell it to every government for citizen inspection. It’s the GUI that gets the contracts, not the technology alone.

Correct. You can't get a contract without marketing/sales interaction with the customers. Customers at a high enough level to sign off on a payment with 7-9 zeroes following the number are not generally programmers (or, if they were, they haven't been working at the coal face for decades): they're senior managers or civil servants. A GUI front end is a really amazing marketing tool for any piece of software insofar a…

Absolutely correct! I used to sell expensive software for Lisp Machines and what sold it was the UI that was dual purpose: for development and for demos to management that they could understand.

BTW, off topic, but I love your books!

Re: U.S. government limits exports of artificial intelligence software

#130

It's funny: it reminds me of "strong cryptography export ban" in the 2000's (btw, Oracle java still have it: you must download strong crypto package separatly)... Obviously, it failed! You can stop a single vendor with unique technology to provide hardware components with bans, but you can't stop a whole field spreading knowledge!!! People come and go, meet, talk, write, exchange knowledges... so sooner or later (and…

Remember what he did? Software was specifically listed under export controls.

So, he printed the code in a book to be OCR’d and further compiled into the software.

No export controls on a book.

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