Sorry, my questions might reflect that I don't know much about China / Chinese culture. I'm curious about compensation. Can Chinese AI researchers earn equally well in China as abroad? Or are they going to suffer from brain drain eventually? How does the Communist Party / society deal with large pay gaps? Are Chinese companies with AI departments looking for international talent that's not at the uppermost level?
China’s AI Awakening
91–100 of 181 posts
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#92I was reading the USNews CS ranking yesterday, got really surprised that apparently some Chinese universities are now considered as the best in CS. top 20 list: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/se... https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/co...
Keep in mind they also have some pretty significant plagarism and pay-to-publish problems.
Keep in mind it's the lower end schools that have the plagarism and pay-to-publish problems. The top schools never had this problem.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of the interesting work is done by Chinese nationals, many of whom feel the startup field in the US is slanted towards white people, so they go back to China and take their knowledge with them. US research institutes are top-notch, but our casual racism and xenophobia are killing us. Not that the Chinese aren't also racist and xenophobic, but the pendulum of power is definitely swinging back across the Pacific.
I live in a country outside the US (not China) but every time people from the US talk about us they have this same story, which seems to come from US news sources, which is nowhere close to what is actually going on. That makes me wonder, is the same thing going on for China? I keep hearing on HN this same story "China is anti-democratic and anti-innovation, nothing interesting goes on there". But how much of that is…
I think it's mainly about perspective. Two people can take the same facts and based on their values, see the story in two different ways.
For example, a medication that has a 70% success rate can be seen as risky or not risky, depending on the person.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#94What 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 Chinese citizen (and more so the upper-middle class Chinese citizen) has increased DRAMATICALLY in the last 40 years. So when people talk about China's potential, they aren't talking about the situation in the next 5 or 10 years. They're talking about who is going exert massive international influence in the next 50 years. So you're right, most westerners aren't buying speculative property in Beijing (despite the fact that housing in central Beijing is nearly as expensive as New York City), but I'd wager there's a good chance of that changing in the next 50 years.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#95Extremely 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?
> world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem
Look at their debt and then tell me they dont try.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#96What 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…
interesting perspective, thanks
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#97Key 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…
The US will continue to cut funding for research and higher education in general. This will give China the edge in almost every level and attract top researchers back. The US is losing its edge.
I only hope the "Sputnik Moment" comes before we give away control of the next major economic sector that technology creates.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#98Another competitive advantage of China is data. China has 1.4B population, and nearly everyone in the country owns a mobile phone. This will contribute data 3-4 times larger than US. Considering second-order interactions (network effect), the data could be an order of magnitude larger. Chinese citizen also seems less concerned about their privacy. I've talked to one of the largest chat platforms in China, and they se…
Excellent point. But you have to factor in american companies international reach. Chinese companies dominate china and that is extremely lucrative, but american tech companies dominate europe and the americas and the rest of the world. Europe and at americas combined have a larger population than china and a geographical landmass 3X larger than china. The real question is why europe ( 800 million people ) and latin…
Is it though, your talking about a federation of democratic and culturally different nations to two locked down regimes with homogeneous societies.
I don't think Europe could do what China and Russia did even if they tried.
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ...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?
They are leading in solar, renewable, nuclear, patents, electric vehicles, high speed rail, hydropower, # of cities, industrialization, # of new universities, etc. China is leading in pretty much everything right now. They are the top trading partner of pretty much every significant country. And they are planning on building another 100 cities in the next 10 years. It is ridiculous how much change china is going thro…
China was kind of domineering, but on a global historic scale they could be considered somewhat non-violent. They even got invaded twice while being the top economic power of their time. There are quite a few aspects I don't like about China, but warmongers, they are not.
If anything, the modern era should be a boon to them, since developed countries are virtually conquerable at a certain scale, via modern technology instantly turning that industrial base into a top tier military, if needed, and via the usually strong alliances provided by strong trade relations.
I actually believe China can be a peaceful #1, provided they can be stopped from bullying their neighbors and Africa when the latest political scandal demands a distraction (à la Clinton - Kosovo).
Re: China’s AI Awakening
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scale of deployment is not technology leadership
It seems we need to agree on a definition of "technology leadership" before discussing it further - otherwise it's too easy to keep moving the goalpost.
A fair definition of technology leadership is you are in the lead and others copy / strive for your achievements.
Not many actual breakthroughs come from China so far, even though they could fill a few Olympic pools with PhDs.