
Xi Jinping urges China to use artificial intelligence in race for tech future - techsocial
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2171102/develop-and-control-xi-jinping-urges-china-use-artificial
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klrr
I think China will create an AI bubble, currently studying in Beijing and all
EE and CS students I know focus all their time at either stats, ML or data
mining. While I think China might have a big shot at the AI race, I don't
think it's useful to have to only focus on AI because it's hot right now, they
may lack progress in other fundamental fields that may lead to more important
breakthrough and technological change.

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yorwba
It's not just China. At my German university all courses related to AI/ML/data
mining/stats are oversubscribed by a factor of 2 to 5. One professor went so
far as to stress that he didn't have any experience with deep learning and
he'd only cover Bayesian statistics in order to discourage students. I don't
think it worked.

I'm pretty sure that there's a similar surge of interest in all countries.

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internet555
I could be quite wrong but wouldn’t a course in Bayesian statistics be a lot
more useful for someone interested in inference or however you will say it?

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cschmidt
It would certainly be useful. I'm interviewing a lot of people for ML roles,
and I've noticed a new group of "deep learning only" people coming out of
colleges. They know their DL, but have no exposure to what I guess we're
calling "traditional ML". Since DL isn't appropriate for all problems, they
don't have the skills we want.

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skrebbel
Few things in the world scare me more than the idea of Xi Jinping with control
over semiautonomous flying robocops.

Other people worry about climate change. Some religious nutcases worry about
paperclip maximizers and basilisks. I worry about Robocop.

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threatofrain
I assume that cheap flying drones are the weapons of the future, not just in
military but police too. Small drones everywhere of all kinds. The drones
would at least be semi-autonomous as having a human behind every single drone
sounds expensive at scale.

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orbifold
Luckily drones still have significant limitations on achievable flight time.
Some of which are dictated by the laws of physics. So for the foreseeable
future there won’t be any bird sized drones chasing you down. Military drones
on the other hand are much larger and expensive.

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YetAnotherNick
And one crash will have high repercussion, even in China.

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threatofrain
Car crashes have important consequences anywhere in the world as well; I think
people will simply accept the low incidence of drone-related accident as part
of their environmental ambience.

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YetAnotherNick
They are completely different thing. I will be much more furious if some
relative die due to drones than accident.

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pasabagi
Why?

I have had a friend die from a car accident. It doesn't exactly make you pro-
driver (he was drunk).

If people can get used to cars, they can get used to anything. I mean, even as
street furniture, they're hideously annoying. They monopolize roads, kill
pedestrians, make noise, poison us, and do the same to our children, then you
pay taxes to subsidize their manufacture. Drones sound far less obnoxious.

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Lio
When Chinese leaders start talking about not being reliant on Western
technology, rightly or wrongly, I immediately start thinking about their
previous industrial espionage campaigns to remove the reliance on Western
aerospace technology. [1]

I'd be a lot more relaxed about these sorts of announcements if the Chinese
government took steps to curb Red Army cyber-attacks.

[1] [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/31/us-
charges-10-ch...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/31/us-
charges-10-chinese-spies-hacking-aerospace-firms-steal-engineering/amp/)

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gman83
Kind of unrelated, but I remember reading this interview with President Obama
and being really impressed with how much he seemed to know about AI:

[https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-
in...](https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/)

~~~
dTal
Wow. Not just about AI - he's consistently insightful in that conversation,
and demonstrates a systems-level mindset that one might even describe as
hacker-esque...

"Part of what makes us human are the kinks. They’re the mutations, the
outliers, the flaws that create art or the new invention, right? We have to
assume that if a system is perfect, then it’s static. And part of what makes
us who we are, and part of what makes us alive, is that we’re dynamic and
we’re surprised."

Hell of a quote.

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techsocial
Original post title: AI in China: Xi Jinping and 25-member policymaking body
Politburo have a “group study” session about AI

.

Xi said China must develop its own AI technology, saying it was important for
economic development, social progress and global geopolitics.

“AI is a vital driving force for a new round of technological revolution and
industrial transformation, and accelerating AI development is a strategic
issue to decide whether we can grasp opportunities,” Xi was quoted by Xinhua
as saying.

Xi said China must ensure that it “occupies the high ground of AI core
technology” and could firmly keep the technology in its hands by leveraging
“China’s massive data and huge market potential”.

He said the country should use AI to upgrade its manufacturing, adding that it
could be used in China’s pursuit of a leaner and greener way of economic
development.

Xi also encouraged government agencies to adopt AI.

“We need to enhance the combination of AI and social governance and develop AI
systems for government services and decision-making,” Xi said, adding that
public security was one field in which it could be used “in depth”.

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saiya-jin
Smart decision from China perspective, they can't be reliant on something
potentially so crucial with western technologies.

But I can't help but think how it will be used for monitoring of lives of
everybody. You do one misstep, government will know about it. Effectively no
privacy. Compared to what it may be (and probably will), current state of
China is a hippie paradise.

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yuchi
These discussions reminds me how Nazis had their own physics…

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ElBarto
Absolutely nothing to do with it...

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jerf
Are you sure? We're already getting stories over here in the West where people
are struggling with the results AI gives them when applied to people because
the results are basically Wrongthink, and are trying to figure out how to get
the AIs to conform better to their ideology and preconceived notions of what
the AIs should be outputting. It's not a terribly far trip from there to
Deutsche Physik or Lysenkoism, except wrapped in a much denser fog of complex
math and enough complicated details to construct any narrative you want. Using
AI to ideologically crack down on a population will eventually reach even the
AI researchers and destroy their ability to maintain and develop the AI.

(I don't think it's an _inevitable_ trip from struggling with AI outputs and
preconceived ideological notions to Lysenkoism. But I think it is an
_extremely_ tempting path for the society as a whole. There are a lot of
forces that push in that direction, as the nature of the AI and what they do
and control moves from a scientific and mathematical matter to a political
one.)

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ElBarto
This has nothing to do with Deutsche Physik but it fits the narrative of some
people to associate China with Nazi Germany or any other dystopian regime.

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jerf
The connection between China and "dystopian regimes" seems pretty clear to me.
The biggest difference is that the Nazis and the Soviets could only dream of
the tools the Chinese already have and will have, though the Soviets
definitely proved that even without tech you could get yourself a pretty
solidly oppressive police state going.

Only time can tell if the result will be a state that explodes even more
quickly due to the suppressed stresses coming out all at once at some point,
or a stable totalitarian state will emerge.

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throwaway487548
It is already a bubble. The number of no-nonsense applications (classification
problems) is actually quite limited and depends on the quality of available
datasets. Andrew Ng used to stress this in his courses.

To apply machine learning techniques successfully the phenomena in question
should be, ideally, discrete, fully-observable, deterministic (very precise
terminology from classic AI). Mere tweaking of parameters on nonsensical or
too abstract data will lead nowhere.

Outside of academia ML already is an astrology with numbers instead of planets
and stars.

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AriaMinaei
For a deeper background on this, I recommend "AI superpowers - China, Silicon
Valley, and The New World Order" by Kai-Fu Lee.

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notbeevil
I don't think the VC of hacknews will care. They only care if they can make
money from it.

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seanmcdirmid
There is lots of money to be made riding the CCP’s hyped priorities, just not
by the VCs outside of China. YC has a China branch.

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joejerryronnie
I wonder why we don't see a backlash against companies investing in China like
we see against companies taking Saudi money?

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ardy42
> I wonder why we don't see a backlash against companies investing in China
> like we see against companies taking Saudi money?

It's a little, like the reaction against Google's project Dragonfly. However,
it'd be much harder to sustain: it seems like nearly every Western company is
investing in China or chasing customers there, so it's hard to single a few
out for protest. You'd have to protest against all of them.

The Saudis aren't nearly so ubiquitous, so they're easier to reject.

