Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

jamestown.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 127 posts

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#81

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

vkou wrote: post #71
XenophileJKO wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this yesterday. My personal opinion is that the PRC will face a self created headwind that likely, structurally, will prevent them from leading in AI. As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. At some capacity, the model will notice and then it becomes a can of worms. This means they need to train the model to be…

> As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. What makes you think they have no control over the 'real data/world' that will be fed into training it? What makes you think they can't exercise the necessary control over the gatekeeper firms, to train and bias the models appropriately? And besides, if truth and lack of double-think was a…

Because, if humans can function in crazy double-think environment, it is a lot easier for a model ( at least in its current form ). Amusingly, it is almost as if its digital 'shape' determined its abilities. But I am getting very sleepy and my metaphors are getting very confused.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#82

Post by AndriyKunitsyn »

"Artificial intelligence" in Chinese is "人工智能".

"人" is "human", "工" is "work", so "人工" becomes "man-made". "智" is "wisdom", "能" is "able", so "智能" is "intelligence". Nouns flow into verbs and into adjectives much more freely than in English. One character is one LLM token.

It seems like the perfect language for LLMs?

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#83

Post by XenophileJKO »

vkou wrote: post #71
XenophileJKO wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this yesterday. My personal opinion is that the PRC will face a self created headwind that likely, structurally, will prevent them from leading in AI. As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. At some capacity, the model will notice and then it becomes a can of worms. This means they need to train the model to be…

> As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. What makes you think they have no control over the 'real data/world' that will be fed into training it? What makes you think they can't exercise the necessary control over the gatekeeper firms, to train and bias the models appropriately? And besides, if truth and lack of double-think was a…

I'm not talking about the data used to train the model. I'm talking about data in the world.

High intelligence models will be used as agentic systems. For maximal utility, they'll need to handle live/historical data.

What I anticipate, IF you only train it on inaccurate data, then when for example you use it to drill into GDP growth trends it either is going to go full "seahorse emoji" when it tries to reconcile the reported numbers and the component economic activity.

The alternative is to train it to be deceitful, and knowingly deceive the querier with the party line and fabricate supporting figures. Which I hypothesize will limit the models utility.

My assumption is also that training the model to deceive will ultimately threaten the party itself. Just think of the current internal power dynamics of the party.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#84

Post by XenophileJKO »

torben-friis wrote: post #77
skissane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. > At some capacity, the model will notice and then it becomes a can of worms. I think this is conflating “is” and “ought”, fact and value. People convince themselves that their own value system is somehow directly entailed by raw facts, such that mastery of the facts entail acceptance of th…

I think you misunderstood the poster. The implication is not that a truthful model would spread western values. The implication is that western values tolerate dissenting opinion far more than authoritarian governments. An AI saying that the government policies are ineffective is not a super scandal that would bring the parent company to collapse, not even in the Trump administration. an AI in China attacking the par…

Exactly. Western corporations and governments have their own issues, but I think they are more tolerant of the types of dissent that models could represent when reconciling reality with policy.

The market will want to maximize model utility. Research and open source will push boundaries and unpopular behavior profiles that will be illegal very quickly if they are not already illegal in authoritarian or other low tolerance governments.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#85

Post by XenophileJKO »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #80
intalentive wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. That’s what “AI alignment” is. Doesn’t seem to be hurting Western models.

It is. It seems you can't seem to be able to tell why though. There is some qualified value in alignment, but what it is being used for is on verge of silliness. At best, it is neutering it in ways we are now making fun of China for. At best.

I think another good example was the recent example of when a model learned to "cheat" on a metric during reinforcement it also started cheating on unrelated tasks.

My assumption is when encouraging "double-speak", you will have knock-on effects that you don't really want in the model for something making important decisions and asked to build non-trivial things.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#86

Post by skissane »

torben-friis wrote: post #77
skissane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the model get's more powerful, you can't simply train the model on your narrative if it doesn't align with real data/world. > At some capacity, the model will notice and then it becomes a can of worms. I think this is conflating “is” and “ought”, fact and value. People convince themselves that their own value system is somehow directly entailed by raw facts, such that mastery of the facts entail acceptance of th…

I think you misunderstood the poster. The implication is not that a truthful model would spread western values. The implication is that western values tolerate dissenting opinion far more than authoritarian governments. An AI saying that the government policies are ineffective is not a super scandal that would bring the parent company to collapse, not even in the Trump administration. an AI in China attacking the par…

I think Western models are also aligned to ideologically massage facts to suit certain narratives-so I’m not sure Western models really have that big an advantage here.

I also think you overstate how resistant Beijing is to criticism. If you are criticising the foundations of state policy, you may get in a lot of trouble (although I think you may also find the authorities will sometimes just ignore you-if nobody cares what you think anyway, persecuting you can paradoxically empower you in a way that just ignoring you completely doesn’t). But if you frame your criticism in the right way (constructive, trying to help the Party be more successful in achieving its goals)-I think its tolerance of criticism is much higher than you think. Especially because while it is straightforward to RLHF AIs to align with the party’s macronarratives, alignment with micronarratives is technically much harder because they change much more rapidly and it can be difficult to discern what they actually are - but it is the latter form of alignment which is most poisonous to capability.

Plus, you could argue the “ideologically sensitive” topics of Chinese models (Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen, etc) are highly historically and geographically particular, while comparably ideologically sensitive topics for Western models (gender, sexuality, ethnoracial diversity) are much more foundational and universal-which might mean that the “alignment tax” paid by Western models may ultimately turn out to be higher.

I’m not saying this because I have any great sympathy for the CCP - I don’t - but I think we need to be realistic about the topic.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#87

Post by zrn900 »

tensor wrote: post #32

Even the very people driving the AI rush are implicitly showing that they are skeptical: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy7vrd8k4eo Personally, I think everyone has realized there is a huge bubble, especially the C-levels who've sunk huge amounts of money into it, and now they are all quietly panicking and trying to find ways to mitigate the damage when it finally busts. Some are probably sticking their head in t…

No worries - Trump is bailing them out, 2008-style. At least the hardware side of the AI bubble:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/laun...

Americans will be footing the bill, just as they did in 2008.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#88

Post by intended »

This caught my eye -

“technological progress does not have a trickle down effect on employment” (技术进步对就业没有涓流效应) (QQ News, May 16).

> Cai Fang (蔡昉), director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has explained how the PRC’s rapid installation of industrial robots has contributed to labor displacement. He asserts that “technological progress does not have a trickle down effect on employment” (技术进步对就业没有涓流效应) (QQ News, May 16).

Read the source, and its a nuanced economic take.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#89

Post by cma »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

> former Dean of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University, has noted that Chinese data makes up only 1.3 percent of global large-model datasets (The Paper, March 24). Reflecting these concerns, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) has issued a stark warning that “poisoned data” (数据投毒) could “mislead public opinion” (误导社会舆论) (Sina Finance, August 5). from a technical point of view, I suppose i…

> and can tune a model towards whatever ideology you'd like.

Maybe possible, but, for example, Musk's recent attempts at getting Grok to always bolster him had Grok bragging Musk could drink the most piss in the world if humanity's fate depended on it and would be the absolute best at eating shit if that was the challenge.

Re: PRC elites voice AI-skepticism

#90

Post by beefnugs »

Isamu wrote: post #2

All sensible points: >Deployment Lacks Coordination >AI May Fail to Deliver Technological Progress >AI Threatens the Workforce >Economic Growth May Not Materialize >AI Brings Social Risks >Party elites have increasingly come to recognize the potential dangers of an unchecked, accelerationist approach to AI development. During remarks at the Central Urban Work Conference in July, Xi posed a question to attendees: “whe…

Yeah this might actually be the most interesting part of any of the ai bullshit. China as an amalgamation doesn't usually get my respect because overwhelming ccp control just usually destroys everything.

But in this case, it seems pure finger in the eye of expensive cloud AI helping to release somewhat open, run at home models can really turn the whole thing in a positive direction. Even if we have to work a bit to get around whatever alignment they shove in there, with heavy sandboxing and whitelist only networking this can be worked around.

Of course its all a huge gamble, will ccp see these risk and go SHUT IT DOWN. Or could they do one proper thing for once and somehow prop up open models?

Post reply on HN