China’s AI Awakening

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 3:27 AM UTC

paradite wrote: post #149

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent emeeging internet markets in china’s backyard like Myanmar and Cambodia are even more dominated by western internet companies. To the average Cambodian, internet means YouTube and Facebook. Chinese companies are completely MIA.

Interesting, care to share the source? I was under the impression that Cambodians are mostly using devices from Chinese brands and hence exposed to pre-installed Chinese software (at least to a small extent). For example, Xiaomi phones come without google play stores but Chinese app stores.

Post by AlexCoventry » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 4:05 AM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #138

dxbydt wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pardon my ignorance, but what is the specific correlation of math skills to dominance in AI ? yes, AI/ML/dnn uses substantial amounts of linear algebra, much the way accountancy uses large amounts of arithmetic. but we don’t see mathematicians racing to be accountants. i have specifically written to several math departments in the US asking if they do any sort of AI/ML related graduate research. Even schools that off…

The PISA test (at least when I took it) measures math skills in calculation, i.e. the kind of applied mathematics that academic departments write off as too trivial. Nonetheless, those are the skills that are required for Deep Learning as well as accountancy. You could make an argument that high performers on the PISA test would find AI and accountancy too boring and would go into pure mathematics instead; but I don'…

Post by paradite » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 4:12 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #151

paradite wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, care to share the source? I was under the impression that Cambodians are mostly using devices from Chinese brands and hence exposed to pre-installed Chinese software (at least to a small extent). For example, Xiaomi phones come without google play stores but Chinese app stores.

There was a big article about their success in SE Asia (including Cambodia and Myanmar) a few years ago, but I can’t find it ATM. Anyways, this page helps: http://geeksincambodia.com/cambodias-2017-social-media-digit... Chinese phones outside of china are generally sold with a straight google app stack. None of those Chinese services are localized in kmher!

Post by kercker » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 4:25 AM UTC

idibidiart wrote: post #117

rawnlq wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by tellarin » Sat, Oct 28, 2017, 5:30 AM UTC

jostmey wrote: post #150

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…

Even with the hostile environment in the US, I suspect China is far more hostile . I don't see China retaining top talent--these individuals might simply go to Europe, Canada, Japan or elsewhere.