You seem to have an overly simplistic view of human nature which may have triggered gp's racist alarm. Look back into the history of Western science: plenty of creativity from scientists who grew up in the eras before creativity gained it's current exalted status. Likewise Chinese people won't all turn into automotons just because the Chinese government policy does not maximize their creative potentials.
I have never thought of myself as understanding people well, so thats no surprise. I guess what was interpreted was that I said "Chinese people are not creative", rather than the more moderate "Authoratian governments do not foster creativity as well as Democracies, and this will harm their AI research". I dislike arguments being taken to extremes, and was hoping to gain insight into what other people thought on this topic, instead of being critized for "being borderline racist". Other commentors have succesfully critized my argument, and I love being shown I am wrong. But I expected more from this forum on not taking things too far.
You do not have much life experience outside of the west, or professional experience in China, but you feel some kind of cultural superiority that roused you to suggest that democratic traditions encourage creativity and authoritarian government discourages it.
Your priors are wrong. I work in the US, public and private grants are shrinking year over year, and anti-intellectualism is rampant. Meanwhile my Chinese colleagues, at the same place in their career, are practically local celebrities and receive unprecedented (in the US) resources to do decade longitudinal research and increase headcount. In reality, China is on the bleeding edge in AI because their government and private industry has the social cohesion to focus on scientific advancement. Besides the vast intellectual capital at their disposal, they can cheaply afford to iterate quickly as the means of manufacturing and production are local.
I think creativity is the wrong thing to focus on if you are interested in where China may fall short as it largely depends on personal initiative. People are creative despite of their government and society, which all exert conforming pressures wherever you are. If the saying "necessity is the mother of all inventions" rings true at all, people in the developing world certainly face more necessities to be creative.
Where China may fall short is actually when people become overly "creative": authoritarianism conditions people to individually work around rules they don't like instead of working together to change the rules. When rules are ignored you have rampant corruption and heavy pollution despite rules on the book.
As I cannot reply to squeegee5 comment I'll reply here:
So, because I don't have the right experience I shouldn't voice my opinion, in a way that suggests I am willing to be proven wrong? I never said I was correct, I said this is what I think and wanted to know what others thought. I never claimed to be qualified, I actually implied I wasn't. It seems you have more experience in this area than I, so I learned something from your comments. Again my issue with your comment isn't that you're telling me I'm wrong, its that you are telling me I am racist
FYI: it's possible to say racist things unintentionally - i.e. without being racist. I'm not saying that's what you did in this thread: but you shouldn't assume that someone is calling you a racist when they say "[...]your other claims are borderline racist"
