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China’s AI Awakening

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Re: China’s AI Awakening

#111

Post by leongrado »

potbelly83 wrote: post #89

What I never understood, if China is so great, why then do large parts of their upper middle class/upper class buy property in foreign countries and send their kids to school their? It's not as if the American upper class are purchasing houses in Beijing for their kids.

China is "great" in some aspects and not great in others. The one party system allows the government to make decisive decisions and act with the backing of tax dollars. Look at the high speed rail system. It pretty much went from non existent to one of the world's best rail systems in a matter of years. It's the same with this AI initiative.

Why are rich parents sending their kids to the US? There's a shortage of jobs for college graduates in China and many parents are hoping that a degree from a western college will give them a better chance at finding a job either in the US or China.

As for buying property. The biggest reason is probably diversification and the fact that the Chinese see property as a good investment. Housing prices in China have sky rocketed and many Chinese families have more than one house that they just leave around with no one living in them. Just like how stock investors invest in foreign stocks, Chinese landowners are diversifying their property.

Foreign investors don't want to buy property in China probably because of the pollution problem and the fact that they think that the housing market there is a huge bubble.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#112

Post by sremani »

Arun2009 wrote: post #82
nopinsight wrote: post #19

Key competitive advantages of China are their strength in quantitative skills, a huge population, and the hard working and competitive culture of the populace. An objective measure is PISA results [1]. When comparing with even the best performing US state, Massachusetts, China has many more top performers in Math, as a proportion of population [2]. (In 2015 only four provinces of China participated, but their combine…

As an Indian, India's performance in the PISA test is simultaneously both humiliating and horrifying. India ended up near the bottom of the test when it first took it. Cause for concern? Sure! What did the government of India do? They pulled out of the test citing that it was "unfair" to the Indian students. Around 70 odd nations apparently didn't have this problem. I have come to think that the country barely has a…

This is a very cynical view, Indian government (central) is and never will be effective, its the structure of India. People feel well governed at district level/zilla parishads. Given the size of country, there should be more push for decentralization, but every Indian politician and his dog loves centralization.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#113

Post by indemnity »

beisner wrote: post #94
potbelly83 wrote: post #89

What I never understood, if China is so great, why then do large parts of their upper middle class/upper class buy property in foreign countries and send their kids to school their? It's not as if the American upper class are purchasing houses in Beijing for their kids.

The United States was once seen as uncultured, unrefined, and frankly quite weak by most of Western Europe until the late 1800's. And in many respects it was. Now the US is the richest country in the world, and is where wealthy non-Americans send their children and make land investments. My point is that trajectory is more relevant to these discussions than current state of affairs. The quality of life of the average…

I think a missing piece of the puzzle is: It’s not clear to me that my property rights would be respected, should I be able to buy property in China (which, as a foreigner, I can’t do anyway, the government only leases it to you at best).

Western countries have a much better record in this regard.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#114

Post by killjoywashere »

Pro tip for folks looking to take a job with a Chinese company: this will prevent you from jumping to some jobs in the US. The defense sector will want you to be not employed by the Chinese for at least a year before letting you work on defense-related jobs (yes, they will audit your employer).

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#115

Post by skriticos2 »

NHQ wrote: post #72
bluetwo wrote: post #40

Whenever I read articles like this I'm really looking for the million dollar idea. Solving Go is good. Solving Poker is better. Best would be solving a high-value business problem for which a solution using AI can be developed.

Care to hazard some examples of the latter?

I can think of two: supply chain management (producing stuff more effectively) and market trend analysis (know what people will buy tomorrow - to build it when it's needed). The first involves a lot of people networking and dealing with the messy bits (hard) while the later is looking into the crystal ball with help of some data to extrapolate likely outcomes (somewhat hard).

There is also logistics (again tons of messy bits), customer service (interacting with people), transportation (now this is probably the lowest hanging fruit - which is why everyone and their dog is chasing it).

Just of the top of my hat.. of course there is R&D (hard), design (hard), bureaucracy (bookkeeping, process management, etc. - easy in theory, not so much in practice) -- well, and all the other things that we humans do during a day of business.

We could also involve politics, government and philosophy - but that would probably be stretching it.

ps. I also suck at counting, so maybe that too.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#116

Post by AndrewKemendo »

monkmartinez wrote: post #18
shadowmint wrote: post #14

Extremely relevant quote from the talented Mr Ng: > “When the Chinese government announces a plan like this, it has significant implications for the country and the economy,” says Andrew Ng, a prominent AI expert who previously oversaw AI technology and strategy at China’s biggest online search company, Baidu. “It’s a very strong signal to everyone that things will happen.” ie. There is going to be a tonne of money p…

> ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this. What are they currently leading?

Volume Manufacturing

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#117

Post by idibidiart »

rawnlq wrote: post #48
idibidiart wrote: post #2

Thb, most of the interesting work I've seen has come out of Silicon Valley. What breakthroughs have come from China?

Due to the language barrier, there is a lot of interesting work that we will never "see". For example I was randomly looking through text recognition competition results and found out Tencent has an AI lab that took first place: http://rrc.cvc.uab.es/?ch=1&com=evaluation&task=4 . But I was unable to find any information about them. They have github repos with thousands of stars but the community is entirely in chines…

I believe TenCent AI Lab is based in Silicon Valley.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#118

Post by leggomylibro »

nopinsight wrote: post #19

Key competitive advantages of China are their strength in quantitative skills, a huge population, and the hard working and competitive culture of the populace. An objective measure is PISA results [1]. When comparing with even the best performing US state, Massachusetts, China has many more top performers in Math, as a proportion of population [2]. (In 2015 only four provinces of China participated, but their combine…

Just wait until they apply that talent to go all Minority Report with social control and their Sesame Credit system. It'll be way easier than with crime; look at the wealth of information on social media, and people want to be listened to.

Chairman Yang? Nah, y'all; it's gonna be Chairman Jinping.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#119

Post by bluetwo »

dirtyaura wrote: post #85
bluetwo wrote: post #40

Whenever I read articles like this I'm really looking for the million dollar idea. Solving Go is good. Solving Poker is better. Best would be solving a high-value business problem for which a solution using AI can be developed.

Arguably high-value business problems that are currently being solved by AI and ML methods: 1) serving personalized ads, 2) efficient stock and commodity trading 3) fraud detection

Sure, and I would add to the list recommendation (Amazon/Netflix)...

But I'm looking for things where the technology has yet to be applied.

Re: China’s AI Awakening

#120

Post by bluetwo »

skriticos2 wrote: post #115
NHQ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to hazard some examples of the latter?

I can think of two: supply chain management (producing stuff more effectively) and market trend analysis (know what people will buy tomorrow - to build it when it's needed). The first involves a lot of people networking and dealing with the messy bits (hard) while the later is looking into the crystal ball with help of some data to extrapolate likely outcomes (somewhat hard). There is also logistics (again tons of me…

I don't think politics and government are a stretch. In fact that's the direction I'm considering.

I don't think transportation is very easy, it's just that the value is high and honestly, there is this trillion dollar asset (the nation's roadways) that companies are going to be able to leverage for a very low cost, which makes it appealing.

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